


there’ll be much mistletoeing and hearts will be glowing

by cori_the_bloody



Category: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, But also, Christmas Angst, Christmas Fluff, F/M, Hanukkah, i've had some wine, merry christmas fellow rethaniel fans, so i'm posting this even though i wanted to have more written by now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-02-20 00:06:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 25,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13135014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cori_the_bloody/pseuds/cori_the_bloody
Summary: She has to have been sent to him by the universe to test his patience—a Christmas specter the likes of which Ebenezer Scrooge would scoff at.Rebecca Bunch crashes into Nathaniel's life with a stupid, wild plan and an unparalleled lack of self-preservation. What else is he supposed to do but help her? 'Tis the season for shenanigans.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Bethany for providing her excellent beta skills, and for Inge and Mai for indulging my constant messages about this ship.
> 
> Happy holidays, friends!

“George? George, buddy, open the door!”

Nathaniel throws down his pen and massages his temples. His neighbor George is the annoying second year who’s always trying to ask him for study tips just because they’re both pre-law, and someone’s been banging on his door for the past twenty minutes. It’s really putting a damper on his spring-semester prep.

“George, if you don’t open up right now, I’m going to shove lit cigarettes under the door. I will. Don’t test me, George. George? George!”

With a frustrated groan, Nathaniel pushes out of his desk chair, knocking it to the ground, and stomps out into the hallway.

“Would you _shut up_ already?”

The source of his annoyance, a short and chubby girl with frizzy hair, turns to him, her face red and her mouth agape.

She doesn’t remain shocked for long, though. “I will not. This is between me and my good pal George. Don’t you have some tiny blonde to be drugging, even though she’d make out with you consensually, because you’re just _that_ much of a dick? Run along.”

He squints at her. “I think that was an insult, but halfway through it was like your voice became a dull buzz. So I can’t really be sure.”

The girl—woman? the hair makes her look twelve, but she has to be around his age—has already lost interest in him and simply flips him off. “George, come on, don’t tell me all our bonding from last night was for nothing! You can’t just kick me out.” She slams her open palm against the door. “George!”

Nathaniel should go back inside and unearth those noise-cancelling headphones his mom got him as a present for making the Dean’s List both semesters his first year. But something holds him in place, watching George’s weird friend desperately try to gain access to his apartment.

His interest probably has to do with the fact that this isn’t the kind of girl George normally goes for—and not just because _those_ girls usually don’t give him the time of day, let alone try to knock down his door in an effort to spend time with him. It’s got nothing to do with the fact that she’s managed to amuse him and piss him off in equal measure within seconds.

That would be absurd. Not to mention stupid. If his dad is going to award him with the coveted Plimpton, Plimpton & Plimpton summer internship, he can’t let himself get distracted.

And yet he finds himself taking a step closer to the girl and clearing his throat.

“So what’s the deal with you and George anyway?” he asks. “Are you his little sister?”

She shoots him an annoyed look. “Why are you still here?”

“Ah, distant cousin, then.”

“There has got to be something more productive you can do with your time than heckling me.”

He shrugs and leans against the wall. “Oh, there definitely is. But you see, there’s a stranger in my hallway shouting at the top of her lungs. Makes it hard to focus on anything else.”

“This is nowhere near at the top of my lungs.” She scoffs like his suggesting so is ridiculous and kicks at George’s door with her boots. “I can totally shout louder.”

“Please don’t demonstrate,” Nathaniel says.

The girl narrows her eyes at him. “Fine. But if you’re going to hang out, you might as well make yourself useful.”

“Let me guess: you want me to use my impressive upper arm strength to throw you at the door until the hinges give. It’s a strange use of my talents, but you know what?” He pushes off the wall and claps his hands together. The sound echoes through the hall. “I think I’m up for it.”

She scrunches her face up in disgust, but Nathaniel notes with immense satisfaction the way she tries to subtly check out his biceps.

“Are you always this much of a douchebag? Like, do you ever peel back one or two of your trillion layers of douchebaggery so you can have a genuine social interaction?” she asks.

“You’re the one who assumed I was sexually assaulting women after one second of knowing me. I’m just trying to live up to the incredibly low standards you’ve set.”

She groans, loud and drawn out…like she’s the one with any right to be put out. “Okay, fine. If we start over will you stop being such an asshole?”

“Not entirely, but I’m willing to dial it back a little.”

She clenches her jaw and closes her eyes, taking a deep breath in through her nose. When she opens them again, she fixes a bright smile to her face and extends her hand. “Hi! I’m Rebecca.”

Nathaniel’s eyebrows shoot toward his hairline. “What the hell just happened to you? Did Casper the Friendly Ghost enter your body?”

She drops her hand and the obnoxious, fake smile. “Is this you dialing it back? Really?”

He shakes his head. “You’re right. My bad. Rebecca, is it? That’s a pretty name. I’m Nathaniel, and it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“Too far in the other direction.”

“So you see my point. It’s jarring, right?”

Though he can see the effort she’s putting forth to keep a stern scowl on her face, the corners of her lips twitch in an almost-smile. “Fine, Nathaniel,” she says his name, enunciating each syllable with suspicion. “No niceties.”

“Great. So, what, did you and George sleep together?”

“Ew, no.” The look of utter disgust on her face has him rolling his shoulders back and jutting out his chin, but then she says, “I have a boyfriend. That’s why I’m here.”

Nathaniel cocks his head. “Let me get this straight. You’re here, trying to knock down George’s door, but George isn’t your boyfriend.”

“Yeah.” Rebecca widens her eyes at him. “Where have you been the last five minutes? Keep up, dude.”

“So what is it that you want from our pal George?”

“He promised to drive me to West Covina last night, but now he won’t open the door!” She punctuates her last three words with three angry thwacks on George’s door.

Nathaniel’s brow furrows and he gently pushes her out of the way. “Mind if I give it a try?”

She twitches out from under his hand but gives him a be-my-guest shrug.

He knocks gently. “George? It’s me. You still need my old Constitutional Law flashcards?” When there’s no answer, Nathaniel laughs.

“What?” Rebecca snaps. “What?”

“Nothing, I just—I’m marveling at your unbelievable density.”

“Hey!” She smacks him pretty hard on the arm.

“You’re stronger than you look,” He says, rubbing at his stinging skin. She scowls at him, clearly losing patience. “Look, I don’t know what you did to scare off the lackey-est lackey there’s ever been, but George is one hundred-percent, without-a-doubt not home. My guess is he left for break.”

“No! No, that can’t be it. He promised he wouldn’t leave without me. _He promised_.”

He notices the signs of an oncoming panic attack—shallow breathing, splotchy face, sweaty forehead—and glances around the hall, looking for help. But it’s just the two of them. “Whoa, hey, it’s cool. Just take a deep breath.”

“He knew I was just going to the ATM so I could pitch in for gas. He wouldn’t leave. He wouldn’t because he promised. He promised me.”

She continues to gasp for breath, ignoring Nathaniel entirely, and wobbles on her feet. He reaches out without thinking, and she latches onto his forearm, her fingernails digging into him.

He points out the obvious. “You should sit down.”

She nods but makes no move to do so.

With a sigh, he starts walking backward toward his open door. “Come on.”

She follows him without protest.

Once they’re inside, he helps her remove the backpack from her shoulders and lowers her onto the couch before darting into the kitchen to get a glass of water.

When he gets back, she’s clutching her chest with one hand and gripping the arm of the couch with the other. It seems as though she’s no longer in danger of hyperventilating, but she’s sitting unnaturally still.

He sets the water on the coffee table and sits down, leaving her as much space as he can.

Nathaniel’s had panic attacks before—in fact, his senior year of high school was pretty much one prolonged panic attack—but he’s never witnessed someone else’s. So he’s really not equipped to handle the situation.

“This is awkward, right?” he asks just for something to do.

“Nah, just another Friday night for me,” she says, the joke landing with a thud between them.

After a second, he clears his throat. “Alright then. Where do you live? Let me drive you back to your place; it’s going to be dark soon.”

Rebecca sounds like she’s trying to laugh, but the noise comes out strangled. “That won’t work.”

“Well I can’t exactly leave you to walk home by yourself. Imagine the crushing guilt you’d be forcing me to live with when I wake up to the headline: _Defenseless Co-Ed Found Dead in Ditch, Mothers Everywhere Feel Vindicated_.”

She shoots him an annoyed look as she leans forward to grab the glass of water off the coffee table, her breathing finally evening out. “Defenseless? Really?”

“Could have gone with pitiful,” he says, “but I’m trying to paint you in the most generous light I can.”

She rolls her eyes. “My hero.”

“Seriously,” he says, scooting a little closer to her on the couch. “Let me take you home.”

She swallows a sip of water so hard, it makes her wince. “I’m not going home.”

He raises his eyebrows. “That was good, but I think the foreboding was a little on the nose. Let’s try it again.”

“Look, you’ve been nice—well, kind of…not really—but I have to get to West Covina before Christmas. So I’ll just—I’m gonna get out of your hair.”

Nathaniel should let her leave, he really should. After all, she’s only caused him grief by disrupting his quiet evening. He doesn’t owe this stranger anything.

But he can hear his mother’s voice, scolding, in the back of his head. _Plimptons are always accommodating_.

He clears his throat and says, “Christmas is a week away, you know? You have some time.”

“Not when you’re hitchhiking across the state,” she says in what Nathaniel assumes is supposed to be under her breath.

“You’re doing what?”

Her eyes go wide and, to stall answering, she takes another drink. After swallowing it down, she says, “This is a nice apartment you have. Do you stay here by yourself? I’m betting the rent’s ridiculous, right?”

He shakes his head, staring at her in disbelief.

She has to have been sent to him by the universe to test his patience—a Christmas specter the likes of which Ebenezer Scrooge would scoff at. Not that Nathaniel actually believes in that kind of intervention on the universe’s part, but he lacks another explanation for the flare of protectiveness that sparks in his chest.

He inhales noisily and then clenches his teeth, considering. Rebecca watches him with a furrowed brow and shifts to the edge of the couch, hand landing on her backpack in the first display of self-preservation he’s seen from her.

“Right, so…bye,” she says, about to stand.

“You hungry?” Nathaniel blurts.

The lines in her forehead deepen. “Um, what?”

“Dinner—I take it you haven’t had any.”

“So?”

“I’ll buy you some.”

She hesitates. “This feels like a trap.”

“You’re alone with a stranger inside that stranger’s apartment. I’d say I’ve successfully trapped you already.”

“Is that supposed to convince me to get dinner with you?”

He sighs. “Do you want free food or not?”

“Well, when you put it that way…”

###

Nathaniel matches his stride to Rebecca’s as best he can—easier said than done considering she has to be at least a foot shorter than him—and walks with his hands shoved deep in his pockets, the same thoughts chasing themselves in circles around his brain.

Whenever his eyes skirt down to Rebecca, she’s already watching him, her face guarded. She never looks away—she’s shameless really—and there’s something in her bright eyes that makes him feel as though he’s a complicated math problem she’s focusing all her energy on puzzling out.

Eventually, he stops looking away, and they walk an entire block with their eyes locked on each other. He almost passes right by the run-down Mediterranean grill that sits between the Stanford campus and his apartment building.

He holds the door open for her, and a rush of cool air spills out into the balmy night. There are two tired-looking upperclassmen behind the counter, and the radio station crackling through the speakers is playing Christmas classics.

Rebecca hums along to “Frosty the Snowman” while studying the menu, and Nathaniel pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs.

Once they’ve ordered—shish kabobs for Rebecca and the falafel platter for Nathaniel—they settle at one of the few rickety tables. While she observes the potted plants on the windowsill and the handmade snowflakes dangling from the ceiling, he wets his napkin with the water from his cup and wipes down the sticky tabletop.

“Snob,” Rebecca says in that almost-under-her-breath-but-not-quite voice, catching him.

He shrugs. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to eat off a clean table.”

She rests her elbows on the edge of the table and leans forward. “So are you an obsessive-compulsive or something? You bring wipes with you wherever you go so you can clean off door handles and grocery carts before touching them? And have to flip light switches seven times every time you use them?”

Nathaniel feels his eyebrows come together. “Which one of us was having a panic attack in my living room earlier?”

Pink rises in Rebecca’s cheeks. “Okay, fair point…but we’re on your weirdness now.”

The worker who took their order—a cute girl with a long ponytail and even longer legs—drops off their food before he has the chance to respond.

“Can I get you guys anything else?” she asks, leaning a little further into his personal space than necessary to set down his plate.

“No, thanks. We’re fine,” Nathaniel says, smiling wide at her and quirking an interested brow.

“Let me know if a need arises,” she says, grinning back at him.

“Oh, I will,” he says.

Rebecca watches the exchange with narrowed eyes but doesn't comment. For some reason, her expression causes his stomach to twist with guilt.

He clears his throat. “Where were we?” She opens her mouth to say something, but he cuts her off. “Right, I was about to ask you what the hell you’re doing hitchhiking to L.A.”

She slides a pepper off one of the skewers on her plate and frowns at him. “I don’t owe you an explanation.”

“Normally, I’d agree with you. The less I know about any given person’s life, the better,” he says. “But seeing as you totally derailed my evening and I did just buy you dinner, I think you _do_ owe me. Consider it the cost of your meal.”

“You’re a dick,” she says. “I thought spending time with you was the cost of my meal.”

Nathaniel lets out a surprised bark of a laugh. “That was cold. Actually, you kind of hurt my feelings.”

“You have feelings?”

His mouth pops open and he gapes for a second. Then he licks his lips, composing himself, and turns his attention to his food. Of course she isn’t mild-mannered—she’s the uncaring ghost of Christmas present.

He forces an even, unbothered tone when he says, “I really don’t see where all this animosity is coming from. You’ve known me for less than an hour and I’ve done nothing but assist you.”

Rebecca huffs and wipes her fingers on a thin napkin. It tears and bits of it cling to the pad of her pointer finger, but she doesn’t seem to notice. “Doesn’t matter. I know your type.”

“My type?” he prompts.

“Yes,” she says, and he’s surprised her tone doesn’t cause the window to frost. “You’re a rich kid who’s never worked for anything. You coast through life on the promise of daddy’s money, and you think everyone without a similar-sized trust fund is unworthy of your time. You love the company of conventionally beautiful women,” she inclines her head toward the girl at the counter, and Nathaniel scoffs. But before he can jump in with a defense, she charges on. “And you get off on judging anyone who doesn’t fit into your picture-perfect world.”

It takes an incredible effort not to grind his teeth at her audacious assumptions. After taking a deep breath in through his nose, Nathaniel smiles. “You are so off.”

“Sure I am, Mister Smarmy Smile with a Three-Bedroom Apartment. Sure I am.”

He cocks an eyebrow at her. “Smarmy?”

She smirks, and her self-satisfaction makes him want to lean across the table and…and…

He shakes his head. “You’re not the only one who can make barely founded assumptions, you know.”

There’s an interested twinkle in her eye. “Barely founded? So you’re copping to the fact that you give off the asshole rich-kid vibe, huh?”

He ignores her. “Oh, yeah, I know your type. The chubby not-unattractive girl—”

“Fuck you,” she spits at him, leaning back in her chair.

He continues, not sparing a second thought for the twinge of remorse in his gut, “—who is desperate for male attention. And men would gladly give you some if you weren’t so damn desperate for it. But that means, when you do land a sucker, you never stop talking about him, parading him around so you can prove to the world that you’re not actually repulsive. At least one person wants you.”

Rebecca crosses her arms over her chest. His words are having the same effect hers did, but she’s clearly no good at reining in her emotions. From the flared nostrils and reddening cheeks to the way she’s working her jaw back and forth, everything about her is screaming out to the room exactly how hurt she is.

The better part of his conscience niggles at him, forcing him to acknowledge that he’s proving her right by being this much of a dick, but the part that’s still bristling at the assumption that he’s never paid a price for his affluence can’t help thinking: _Good, she deserves to feel shitty_.

He gets up to refill his water at the soda machine just for something to do. She’s still steaming when he slides back into his chair.

“So tell me about him,” he says, feigning as much interest as he can.

Confusion makes her face pinch.

“Your boyfriend,” Nathaniel clarifies.

She sneers at him. Actually sneers. “Oh, yeah right. That’s gonna happen.”

“Come on,” he says, hitting her with his _smarmiest_ smile. “Tell me a tale of romance. How’d you guys meet?”

Her mouth gets all puckered and her eyes narrow, but he can tell she wants to start talking despite herself...despite the fact that it’ll prove him right. “You’re just going to make fun of me.”

“Because that’s what asshole rich kids do, right? They, and I quote, ‘get off on judging anyone who doesn’t fit into their picture-perfect world’.”

She cocks a challenging eyebrow at him, and he can see a spark of something intriguing-yet-unreadable in her eyes. “And chubby, desperate girls tell everyone they can about their boyfriends.”

“You forgot the not-unattractive part. The compliment softens the rest, don’t you think?”

“ _No_.”

He laughs. “So?”

After a long-suffering sigh and while trying to hide a pleased smile, she says, “We were in the Excelsingers together.”

Nathaniel pauses with a ball of falafel halfway to his mouth. “The what now?”

“Here we go,” Rebecca says, rolling her eyes toward the ceiling.

“I’m not making fun of you,” he says. “I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She frowns, sizing him up, and then says, “The Excelsingers…they’re a very prestigious touring choir.”

He tries not to laugh, he really does, but it’s a knee-jerk reaction to the words ‘prestigious touring choir.’

“Such a thing exists?” he asks, composing himself before she can get defensive.

“Obviously.”

“Okay, fine.”

“It’s a really competitive program,” she nearly snaps, sensing his skepticism. The audition process is hell, and a lot of the alumni are now on Broadway. You make life-long connections if you’re good enough to get in.”

“Yeah, yeah, got it. You’re basically rubbing elbows with Barbra Streisand.”

She looks dubious about the first part, but the fact that he correctly named a Broadway star gets him points. He can tell.

Nathaniel grins to himself as she continues.

“ _Anyway_ , Josh was the only guy in the tenor section who wasn’t a total snob. He’s the kind of person who smiles at everyone—you’d have to see his smile to really understand what a gift it is—and he actually wants to know how you are when he asks, you know. He had this habit of breakdancing during the intermission for our shows to stay loose. I really liked to watch because he’d take off his shirt and coat and he has these great arms. He was super good at all those different moves where you hold your body up by planting your hands on the ground, and the way his triceps would ripple—”

“Does this digression have a point?” Nathaniel asks.

“You asked me to talk about Josh,” Rebecca says, the spark in her eyes returning. “I’m talking about Josh.”

“Could you maybe do it with a little less swooning?”

“Am I making you uncomfortable?” she asks like she knows she is.

Instead of answering, he gestures for her to continue.

“When I first met him, he was dating this obnoxious and obnoxiously beautiful girl from his hometown, but they split right before our Christmas concert last year.”

“I wonder how this story ends,” Nathaniel interjects.

Rebecca shushes him and says, “He was really bummed out, so I offered to buy him dinner after the show.”

“Yeah, I bet you did.”

“We got to talking, and Josh opened up about missing home and how he was only studying to become a radiology technician to please his dad and that he’d picked a school in New York as a way to be a little rebellious, so I told him that signing up for the Excelsingers was a way for me to rebel against my mom but I was kinda regretting it because driving from Harvard to NYC for weekend rehearsals was getting expensive. And then he told me I was the only person who really got what it was like for him and he kissed me and it was—”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Nathaniel says, waving his hands in front of his face, as if he could physically stop the outpour of information. “You’re a student at Harvard?”

She looks upset that he’d interrupted her at the best part. “Um, yeah.”

“Are you telling me that you hitchhiked from _Massachusetts_ to California?”

“No, of course not,” she says, and he places a hand over his heart, relieved. That is, until she adds, “I had enough money in my emergency stash to get a bus ticket from Massachusetts to Illinois, so I’ve only had to hitchhike from outside Chicago.”

Nathaniel blinks a couple times, willing the girl sitting across from him to disappear or shimmer out of form. There’s no way she can be real…she has to be a mirage or an apparition or something.

But there she is, solid as ever, when he opens his eyes wide enough for them to sting around the edges.

“ _Why_?”

“I was getting to that part, but you keep interrupting me.” When he does nothing but stare at her with disbelief, she continues with her story. “So we kissed and started dating, but at the end of the year, Josh transferred to a community college back home in West Covina to finish his degree. We’ve been long distance ever since, but a couple weeks ago, he sent me a message saying it’s too bad we can’t at least see each other for Christmas since it’s kinda _our_ holiday. So I’m trying to surprise him.”

She concludes her tale with a satisfied little shimmy of her shoulders and a pleased grin.

“I have…so many questions,” Nathaniel finally manages.

Rebecca shoves the last bit of food left on her plate into her mouth and then says around it, “Too bad. Meal’s over and so is our time together.”

“God, at least swallow first,” he says, pushing his own unfinished plate away.

She does, standing and sliding her backpack onto her shoulders. “Well, thanks for dinner, I guess. If you know of anyone heading south, now’s the time to throw me a bone.”

Nathaniel licks his lips, thinking, but when he doesn’t say anything for several moments, she shrugs.

The thud of the restaurant door closing behind her propels him into action.

“Wait,” he calls, jogging after her.

She turns at the sound of his voice, but keeps walking backward up the sidewalk. “What?”

“It’s late,” he says.

“I know.”

He takes a couple long strides, closing some of the distance between them. An offer bubbles to his lips, but he’s not quite sure he wants to make it yet. So instead, he says, “Stay the night at my apartment.”

That gets her to stop walking. “Huh?”

“I have an air mattress. You can stay in the extra room. Take a night to plan the next leg of your journey.”

He can tell she’s interested in taking him up on the offer, but she hesitates.

“I’ll contact a couple friends,” he says, sweetening the deal. “See if anyone can drive you some of the way.”

“Why are you doing this?” she asks, taking a tentative step in his direction.

He looks away from her, rubbing at the back of his neck. “I don’t know. Call it…Christmas spirit. There’s something about this time of year that makes you want to help people, right?”

When he glances back at her, she’s biting her bottom lip and watching him. He raises his eyebrows—a silent question.

She rocks back on her heels and then bounds over to him. They fall into step on the way back to his apartment.

“For the record, I’m Jewish. So what you’re feeling right now is the Chanukah spirit. It kicks in at sundown.”

Nathaniel casts a sidelong glance at her. She’s looking straight ahead, her cheeks flushed and her face relaxed in a soft smile.

He finds himself returning it even though she’s not looking.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My stories would all be sprinkled through with awkward phrases and clunky moments if it weren't for Bethany, and I am forever grateful. It's been, what, upwards of three years since you started betaing for me? And you still push me to become better. Thank you. <3
> 
> My notes relating to the chapter? Well - it just wouldn't be r/n fic without a dash of Harry Potter, am I right?

“Oh, good, you’re awake,” Nathaniel gets back from his run the next morning to find Rebecca lounging on the couch in the front room watching the morning news and looking totally at ease.

“Yeah, and at a normal time for a human.” She pops up immediately and follows him into the kitchen. “You know you’re on break, right? What’s with the eight a.m. wake-up call?”

“Not everyone can drop everything on a whim and hitchhike across the country,” he says, thrusting the coffee he’d picked up on his way home into her hands and dropping a paper bag full of bagels on the counter. “Some of us have lives.”

“Clearly you’re not one of the blessed few,” Rebecca says, taking a big sip from her paper cup.

“Just say thank you for the breakfast, asshole.”

“Thank you for the breakfast, asshole,” she says, and when he shoots her an annoyed look, she unleashes a devilish grin on him.

After a second, he looks away, thrusting his head into the refrigerator so she can’t see him smile back.

Normally, he’d set right to making a smoothie, but there was an unexpected nip in the air this morning. He considers making himself hot soup instead to stave off the heaviness in his chest and return the feeling to his toes.

Of course, he doesn’t really have any good soup ingredients on hand. With a resigned sigh, he grabs the spinach and pineapple and mango.

With his head still in the fridge, forcing nonchalance into his tone, Nathaniel clears his throat and says, “I’ll drive you.”

When she doesn’t answer for a long moment, he stands up and kicks the fridge closed. She’s watching him with an open mouth—a glob of schmear clearly visible.

“Christ, are you eating that straight out of the container?”

“It’s just as good,” she says defensively, still not swallowing.

“Please, put me out of my misery,” he says, holding up his hands in front of his eyes.

She finally swallows with an audible gulp, and then says, “Maybe don’t drop conversational bombs when I’m in the middle of a meal if you’re not prepared to deal with the consequences.”

“I don’t think cream cheese constitutes a meal.”

“Are you serious?” she asks, choosing not to return with a jab of her own.

He shrugs, getting out his cutting board and a knife. “Yeah. I am.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You said he lives in West Covina, right?”

“Yeah, so?”

“So I googled it. It’s about an hour from my parents’ house in L.A., and I’m already heading there for Christmas. Taking you on your dumb, chick-flick errand will barely inconvenience me. It just makes sense.” He pauses in his cutting of fruits to glance at her.

She’s smirking at him like she just solved the puzzle, and he resists the urge to immediately shove her out the door.

“You’re a closet romantic, aren’t you?”

He starts tossing the chunks of fruit into his blender, rolling his eyes at her. “Gross. No.”

“Yeah, you’re invested in my love story. You just can’t properly admit it because you’re so entrenched in your own toxic masculinity.”

“I’m not entrenched in anything,” he says, running a handful of spinach under hot water. “I’m just pragmatic.”

“You’re rooting for me and Josh—you want us to have our magic moment,” she says, dropping a bagel in his toaster.

“That’s absolutely not it,” he says vehemently. “Everything you’ve told me about Josh has me certain I’d hate the guy.”

She cocks her head, and he tries not to let the feeling of her eyes on him, curious, make him fumble with the lid of his blender.

“Well then why are you offering to help me?”

“I already told you.”

“Oh right, it’s because you’re so practical and evolved and uncaring,” she says, slipping into a terrible and terribly exaggerated British accent halfway through her sentence.

In response, he flips the switch on his blender.

Once the noise dies down, Rebecca clears her throat. “So when do we leave?”

Nathaniel retrieves a tall glass from the pantry, glancing over at her before starting to pour. The teeth-chattering nervous energy she’d been exuding yesterday has completely warped into a teeth-chattering _excited_ energy. He doesn’t allow himself to linger too long on why that makes his chest feel warm.

“Tuesday,” he says hurriedly. “We leave on Tuesday.”

Rebecca hums thoughtfully as she spreads schmear on her toasted bagel. “I can work with that.”

“You don’t have much of a choice,” he says, taking a sip of his smoothie before setting it aside and filling the blender canister with hot water.

She rolls her eyes, but says, “Thank you. You know. For offering.”

“You’re welcome.”

“So what do we do until then?”

“Well, _I_ have a dinner party tonight,” he says, leaning against the counter and taking another sip. “Not sure what you’re going to do.”

She frowns. “I don’t know anyone here but you. And Tuesday is, like, three days from now.”

“What’s your point?”

The face she pulls at his tone makes Nathaniel’s stomach twist. He wonders if this is what it’s like for people who’ve just kicked a puppy or snatched candy away from a small child.

“I just mean,” he says, annoyed with himself that he cares enough to try softening the blow…especially because he’s not really sure how he managed to hurt her feelings in the first place. “You do your thing, I’ll do mine, and we’ll try not to get in each other’s way too much. Cool?”

“Ah, it’ll be just like freshman year again,” she says, mustering a smile.

“Exactly,” he says, choosing to ignore the additional stab of guilt he feels at the insincerity of it. He holds out his hand. “We’re roommates. _Temporary_ roommates.”

“Temporary roomies,” she agrees, shaking on it.

###

Even after the triumph that is his LSAT practice test, Nathaniel’s brain continues to linger on Rebecca’s fake smile and the fact that he clearly hurt her feelings somehow.

Which must be why, even though it’s past time to head over to Mr. Whitefeather’s house for dinner, he finds himself stuck outside the closed door to his guest room, waging an internal debate.

Finally, he sighs and knocks gently. “Rebecca?”

She opens the door too quickly and seems to notice it a second too late. To make up for the overeagerness, she leans casually in the doorway. “Hey, what’s up?”

Nathaniel resists the urge to squeeze his eyes shut in an attempt to physically block the image of her trying too hard. “I’m, uh, heading out now.”

“Oh, well, have fun,” she says, furrowing her eyebrows at him. He gets the kicked puppy feeling again.

He shakes it off and says, “There’s probably room for another plate at the table.”

She stands up straight, eyes brightening, and asks, “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Her excitement flickers off just as quickly as it’s been flicked on. “Is this an invitation or a rub-it-in-my-face kind of thing?”

Nathaniel lets out an exasperated huff—he’s never met someone so perpetually wounded. “You know what? It _was_ an invitation until you asked. Have a good night.”

He starts to walk away, but Rebecca catches his arm. “Wait, no, come on. I can be cool. I can get down with the kids, or whatever.”

He raises an incredulous eyebrow.

“Okay, maybe I’m not making, like, the best case ever, but…please don’t leave me alone here. Your apartment is so creepy. It’s like a shrine to a really dull person who only cares about fitness and old case law.”

“So your goal is to insult me into bringing you along, is that it?” he asks, rankled by the fact that her description of his place isn’t totally inaccurate.

“If you leave me behind I’ll just reorganize your books and eat all your smoothie fruit.”

It’s a hilariously mundane threat, but the stern set of her mouth convinces Nathaniel that she means business.

“Fine, you can come.”

“Excellent,” she says, obviously proud of herself. They stand there for a moment, both unsure about their next move, and then her gaze slips from his eyes down the length of his body. He crosses his arms over his chest, about to comment on the fact that she’s obviously checking him out, when she adds, “Just give me a minute to change.”

Nathaniel stalks off to wait by the front door, thinking to send a text to Mr. Whitefeather at the last minute.

He texts back right away, assuring Nathaniel that there’s room for a plus-one. Nathaniel’s not sure if he’s relieved or annoyed.

“Ready to go?” Rebecca asks, suddenly standing in front of him in a simple blue scoop-neck sweater dress.

It’s not like he hadn’t noticed before where some of her chubbiness was concentrated…but she also hadn’t been wearing anything specifically designed to draw attention to her cleavage until this moment.

Nathaniel gapes just a bit longer than is socially acceptable.

“Uh.” He swallows hard. “Yeah.”

She doesn’t comment on his obvious fixation, but does raise a knowing brow at him.

He chooses to ignore it.

“So where are we going?” she asks as they’re getting into his car.

“I told you: it’s a dinner party.”

“Okay, but that doesn’t exactly paint a complete picture. You could give me some more details. Like, who’s going to be at this dinner party?”

“Lawyers,” he says, putting the car in gear and pulling out of the lot.

She catches onto the fact that he’s not feeling very talkative and reaches for the radio. “Wait, are you one of _those_ _drivers_?”

“Elaborate.”

“Those drivers who insist on controlling the radio just because it’s their car.”

“Not really. Listen to whatever you want…just not Christmas music.”

“Oh, of course not,” Rebecca says, and he can hear the smirk in her voice.

“Last Christmas” starts blasting out of the speakers.

He shoots her an unamused look, but she shrugs as if there’s nothing to be done and starts singing along—her voice clear and confident.

Resigned to his fate, Nathaniel sighs and merges onto the freeway.

He’s absolutely not smiling.

###

“Oh my gosh, you have to be Nathaniel’s girlfriend. You look so lovely! That’s an excellent color on you, my dear. Though you guys didn’t have to dress up. I told you this was an Ugly Christmas Sweater party, Nathaniel. So many people ignored that part. Do you think I used too small a font on the invitation?”

Darryl Whitefeather’s normal intensity is ratcheted up to 11 under the excitement of hosting a party.

“Rebecca is not my girlfriend,” Nathaniel says in lieu of answering Darryl’s question. “She’s, uh…”

He falters, unable to come up with an uncomplicated way to describe their relationship.

“Hi!” Rebecca cuts in, extending her hand to Darryl. “It’s nice to meet you. Your home is so cozy. I love the orange walls.”

“Oh.” He places a hand over his heart. “Thank you.”

Nathaniel just barely resists the urge to roll his eyes.

They’re herded toward the living room, where the Whitefeather & Associates employees have clustered around in their usual groupings. A few candles and the small fireplace supply most of the light in the room. The hazy glow creates an intimate atmosphere, but the cost is that the room is a few degrees too hot. The pine garland and strings of white, holiday lights draped around the room almost seem out of place in the warmth.

“I’ll go get you guys something to drink,” Darryl says, squeezing Nathaniel’s shoulder and smiling. “What do you want? Eggnog? Hot chocolate?”

“Water for me,” Nathaniel says.

“I’ll have some of the eggnog,” Rebecca says, perking up. After Darryl rushes off, she elbows Nathaniel in the side. “He’s sweet. I like him.”

“He’s alright,” Nathaniel agrees, smiling after his boss.

“So these people are actually lawyers, aren’t they? They reek of opportunism.”

He snorts in amusement. “Of course they are. You thought I was lying to you?”

“I don’t know,” Rebecca says. “Yeah, I guess I did. It seemed like you were telling a joke, and I didn’t understand the punchline.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you give off an everyone’s-out-to-get-me vibe?” he asks her.

Her face twists as she internalizes his comment, but a second later, she’s staring at him with open-mouthed, mock hurt.

“I can’t believe you’d say something like that to me. Now I’ll never trust anyone again.”

A grin overtakes him. “You know, I’m kind of glad you came with me tonight.”

Her exaggerated expression melts into a touched smile, and Nathaniel feels his heart lurch pleasantly in response.

“C’mon,” he says, brushing away the moment sooner than he really wants. “I’ll introduce you to people.”

###

Rebecca’s scary good at schmoozing.

Nathaniel’s no stranger to the game himself—the finer rules of successful networking have been drilled into him since before he could talk, after all. Still, he can’t help but admire Rebecca’s form. Where he has to feign interest and force small talk, she has a knack for appearing genuinely interested in every inane conversation.

Her apparent superpower is such that she even gets Karen, the extremely off-putting case worker, to behave like a person capable of having a normal conversation for a full five minutes.

(Rebecca’s not so good that she can keep Karen from talking about her menstrual habits, but Nathaniel’s never met anyone who is, so that can’t really be counted as a strike against her.)

“Nathaniel.” His name pulls him back into the present moment and a conversation with Paula, Desperate Housewife Extraordinaire. “If I’d have known you kept company with people as delightful as Ms. Bunch here, I might not have discounted you as a waste of my time so early on in our working relationship.”

He smiles politely. “Yes, you would have.”

Paula makes a humming sound, as if to say ‘ _You’re probably right, but who could really blame me?_ ’

Rebecca joins her in laughter, and he frowns at her.

_Traitor_ , he mouths.

She waves her hand, dismissing this.

“Still,” Paula says. “I will miss your presence around the office. You were actually competent sometimes.”

“As much as it warms my cold, cold heart to hear you say so, you’re not quite rid of me.”

“Oh?” She perks up, interested. “Did you apply for the internship? Darryl made it sound like you’d turned him down pretty definitively.”

Nathaniel feels a blush rise in his cheeks, and, much to his chagrin, Rebecca takes note, looking back and forth between him and Paula curiously.

“N-no, I just mean—”

“And how’s everyone over here?” Darryl asks, bounding over to their little group. His voice is a touch too loud, and Nathaniel can smell the alcohol on his breath. “You guys enjoying the party?”

“I am!” Rebecca says gamely, distracting Darryl enough that he doesn’t notice Paula detaching his hand from her arm and putting a bit of distance between them.

“I am so relieved to hear that. You know, I was worried that no one would have a good time. My divorce was just finalized, and my wife…well, I guess she’s my ex-wife now, how about that?” Darryl laughs, but, when no one joins him, he clears his throat and continues. “Anyway, she was the one who really knew how to throw a party.”

“I think you’re doing a great job,” Rebecca says. “The decorations are very festive.”

“Yes,” Paula says, “the roaring fire in the sixty-degree heat was a particularly nice touch.”

Nathaniel smirks, and takes a sip of his water to keep himself from laughing out loud.

“Speaking of decorations,” Darryl says, either ignoring the pointed remark or too drunk to realize that it was one, “did you two realize you’re standing under mistletoe?”

Rebecca and Nathaniel glance up in unison, and, sure enough, a sprig of mistletoe is suspended from the ceiling right above them.

“Huh,” he says, feeling a strange tug in the pit of his stomach. At the same time, she lets out a nervous titter.

“You have to kiss,” Darryl says. “Christmas rules.”

“Oh, well, I’m Jewish. So…” Rebecca says, her eyes darting from the mistletoe to Paula to the far edges of the room. When they land on him, her eyes widen and her lips part in surprise.

Nathaniel shakes his head imperceptibly, a silent apology.

“C’mon,” Darryl says. “Don’t let me down! The party depends on it.”

“I don’t think it does,” Nathaniel says.

“Please?” Darryl pushes.

“He’s probably not going to drop it until you do,” Paula says, frowning sympathetically at them.

A couple arguments persuasive enough to dissuade Darryl float through his mind, but he pushes them, half-formed, aside and gives in way too easily.

He swoops in quick, looking to give her a simple, friendly peck on the cheek just to placate his boss. Rebecca turns her head in surprise at exactly the wrong moment, though, and he catches the corner of her mouth.

Her cheek is noticeably warm, even in the sweltering room, and she’s wearing sticky, fruity-scented lip balm. Nathaniel licks at his lips as he pulls away.

“That was lame,” Darryl says as the two of them blush hard and avert their eyes. “You can do better than that.”

“She has a boyfriend,” Nathaniel says—one of the arguments that really should have come up _before_ he assaulted his temporary roommate. “So, no, I really can’t.”

“Oh…oops.” Darryl has the decency to join them in embarrassment.

“It’s no big deal,” Rebecca says, laughing a hearty laugh. Nathaniel notices an edge of panic in the full, ringing sound.

It puts Darryl at ease, though. “Thanks for being such good sports.”

Rebecca and Nathaniel glance at each other from the corner of their eyes and then look away quickly.

“Sure,” he says. “It’s no problem.”

Darryl claps him on the shoulder. “Dinner will be served in ten.”

Then he’s gone just as quickly as he’d come, bouncing off to inform the rest of the partygoers to start heading for the dining room.

The three of them stand in awkward silence for a few moments, Rebecca and Nathaniel both looking desperately to Paula.

“So,” she says finally, shooting Rebecca a sly smile. “Tell me about this boyfriend.”

###

Well into the meal, Rebecca and Paula are still gabbing about Josh Chan.

They touch on every stage of the relationship. While listening to the story of how Rebecca and Josh met, Paula eats with one hand so the other can clutch at her chest. When Rebecca gets to the part about their first kiss, Paula coos, fawning over the romance. And when Rebecca details her stupid plan to surprise Chan for Christmas, Paula stupidly encourages her by calling it brave.

Not that Nathaniel cares about any of it. He’s just Rebecca’s ride, after all.

Still, he can’t help feeling that Paula’s reactions are dramatized to the point of ridiculousness. It’s not like the story of how Rebecca and Josh got together is actually that compelling. They basically met in a club. Hundreds of people have probably met their significant others by way of shared interests…there’s no drama or intrigue there.

Just off the top of his head, Nathaniel can think of a hundred more remarkable meet-cutes. Running into someone while they’re on a mission and getting in their way…extending a reluctant helping hand…now _that_ was the kind of story that bred—

“Hey, buddy, we haven’t gotten a chance to touch base, one-on-one.” Darryl plops down in the seat next to him, derailing his train of thought.

Nathaniel gives him a grateful smile. “You’ve been busy playing dutiful host.”

“Well I’m all yours now. When are you making the trek home for Christmas?”

With a hard swallow, Nathaniel turns away and pokes at the cut up pieces of chicken breast on his plate. “Tuesday.”

He can feel Darryl’s eyes studying him, shrewd even in drunkenness. “I remember my college days.”

“Oh yeah? Your memory goes back that far?”

“Watch it, kid.” Darryl ruffles his hair, and Nathaniel swats his hand away. “I’m still technically your boss.”

“Of course. My apologies, sir.”

Darryl laughs and reclines back in the chair. “Oh yes, going home for the holidays was always such a mixed bag. Doing laundry for free—that was a plus. But I’d clash extra hard with my father. Something about the season made him grumpy. Maybe it was the early sunset.”

Nathaniel stiffens. Darryl’s always trying to lead him down this road, but he never does it with enough nuance to make it work.

“Yeah, maybe.”

“Say, have you given any more thought to filling out the Whitefeather internship application? You know, just to keep your options open.”

Nathaniel can’t help but notice that Rebecca and Paula’s conversation has come to a screeching halt.

“I could never accept it,” he says, fixing a polite smile onto his face. “And I really don’t want to waste the review board’s time.”

“I wouldn’t be a waste,” Darryl starts, but then Maya comes back from the bathroom and asks for her seat back, mercifully putting an end to one-on-one time.

###

“You _have_ to call me and tell me how he reacts,” Paula says, pulling Rebecca in for yet another hug.

“Oh, my god, of course I will.” Rebecca gives her a squeeze and then pulls away to fish her phone out of her bra. “What’s your number?”

Nathaniel rolls his eyes; they’ve been saying goodbye for the last ten minutes.

“Are you ready to go yet?” he asks, flipping his car keys against his palm so his question is punctuated by the jangling.

“Yeah, alright.” She starts backing away from Paula reluctantly, waving as she goes.

“Finally,” he says.

As they pass the accent table by the front door, Nathaniel quietly reaches for the card in his back pants pocket and tosses it onto the dish that holds Darryl’s keys. Then he surreptitiously glances to Rebecca. She’s distracted by her phone—no doubt already texting Paula—and isn’t paying him any mind.

“Wait,” Rebecca says just as they reach the car. “I forgot something inside.”

“What? You didn’t bring anything to forget.”

She shakes her head. “Just…start the car. I’ll be back in a sec!”

He stares after her for a moment before doing as he’s told—but only because the chill in the air has gotten worse, since the sun set hours ago.

“If you’re not back in two minutes, I’m leaving without you,” he says, mostly to the clock on his dashboard.

She makes it with seconds to spare, plopping down into the passenger seat with an audible exhale. “Whew, alright. Let’s jet.”

“Are you sure? ‘Cause we could hang around some more—squeeze a few more hugs out of Paula.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault your coworkers like me better than you,” she says, fiddling with the radio again.

“Yes, that’s clearly the source of my agitation,” he says derisively.

“I can’t believe you get to work with those people on a regular basis,” she says, and if Nathaniel’s not mistaken, there’s wistfulness in her voice. He frowns at the windshield. “I bet Darryl makes for a hilarious boss.”

“He’s colorful,” Nathaniel agrees.

But apparently Rebecca’s not really looking for a conversation. She starts pontificating about the Whitefeather employees’ virtues and barely even stops to breathe.

“…Gosh, even their dates were nice,” she’s saying, still talking by the time Nathaniel’s unlocking the front door to the building. “Did you talk to that girl Maya brought—Heather? Wasn’t she like, actually the coolest person you’ve ever laid eyes on? I’ve always thought about putting streaks in my hair, but I’m not sure I could pull it off.”

“Nothing could distract from the frizz,” he says, pushing into the apartment and turning on the overhead light. “So, at worst, you’d be making a lateral move. I say go for it.”

She mock laughs, and then finally falls silent.

It’s not a peaceful, still silence, though. No, Rebecca’s silence practically vibrates through the air, filled with potential energy that’s bound to become kinetic.

As if she’d been cued, she clears her throat. “So…”

“What?” he asks, pausing in the doorway to the kitchen and leaning on the wall.

Rebecca perches on the arm of the couch. “You seem to be the cause of big office drama.”

Nathaniel crosses his arms over his chest. He’d noticed her noticing the talk, of course, but he was pretty sure she’d also picked up on his discomfort and wasn’t going to pry.

They’re literal strangers, though—it shouldn’t really come as a shock to him that he can’t predict her behavior.

“Don’t.”

“Don’t, what?” Rebecca asks, widening her eyes at him.

“Don’t start,” he says, pushing off the doorframe. “I’m going to bed. Good night.”

“Wait, but we just got back! And it’s barely even ten. Hey…I know what would be fun. We could, like, play a card game, or Never Have I Ever, or Truth or Dare. Any of the sleepover classics, really.”

Nathaniel loses grip on his patience. “Dear god, are you allergic to being alone or something?”

“No,” she says, her face getting all pinched. “But I just thought, you know…”

“No, I really don’t,” he says when it seems like she’s not gonna finish her thought any time soon.

He’s almost to the hall when her voice stops him in his tracks.

“I read the card!”

He takes a few, measured steps back to the living room. “You did what now?”

“The card that you left for Darryl. I didn’t actually forget anything. I went back inside to read your card. Because it seemed like you really didn’t want me to, which is not an excuse, I know. But, uh, for what it’s worth, I think you should apply for the Whitefeather internship because it seems like you really enjoy working with those people and it could be good for you to—”

“It’s not worth anything.”

“Wh-what?”

“You said for what it’s worth, and I’m telling you.” He makes sure to look her right in the eyes and enunciate each word: “Your opinion isn’t worth anything to me.”

“Hey, okay, I know that reading the card was an invasion of privacy or whatever, but I’m just trying to be a good friend.”

“Ah, see, there—that’s the problem we have,” Nathaniel says, clenching his fists at his sides. “Let me make one thing very clear here, Rebecca.”

She juts her chin out, a weary expression on her face. “Um, okay.”

“We,” he waves his hand between the two of them, “we are not friends. And we’re not going to become friends just because I offered to help you.”

She tries to keep her expression stoic and mostly succeeds, but Nathaniel sees the brief flash of rejection in her eyes, the slight twist of her mouth.

They maintain eye contact a moment longer, and then he turns sharply, marches down the hall, and lets his bedroom door fall closed with a heavy thud.

###

“You couldn’t sleep either, huh?”

Nathaniel jolts, startled, and looks over his shoulder to find Rebecca with one foot in the living room and one out on the balcony, fiddling with the lock to the sliding glass door.

“What time is it?”

She cranes her neck to look at the clock above his desk. “2:23.”

“Oh. Guess not.”

She takes a deep breath, and he braces himself.

“You want tea?”

“Huh?”

“I’m making tea. You want some?”

He winces. “Rebecca, you don’t have—”

“I’m not,” she says quickly. “I want tea, so I’m making some. If you want a mug, too, I’ll just add more water to the kettle. Nothing to it.”

“Right.” He rubs at the back of his neck. “Yeah, uh, tea would be nice. Thanks.”

He relaxes into the over-plush cushions of the gliding loveseat when he hears the door slide shut. A second later, though, he hears the whoosh of it being pushed open once again. “Quick question,” Rebecca says. “Where do you keep your tea?”

With a short laugh, he stands and follows her into the kitchen.

“What would you have done if I weren’t an insomniac?”

“Tear apart your cabinets.”

“That’s fair.”

She fills up the kettle and sets it on the stovetop as he digs the tin of chamomile tea out from behind his stash of half-empty protein bar boxes. Then he retrieves a couple mugs from the cabinet above the sink.

The stand on opposite ends of the tiny kitchen, leaning against the countertops in silence. Nathaniel’s eyes stray almost accidentally to Rebecca.

Her head is ducked and she’s studying the ends of her hair. She must have gone to bed while it was still damp because some of her curls poke out from her scalp at odd angles while others look crushed. Also, patches of dampness have bloomed around the shoulders of her sweatshirt—a ratty thing commemorating some mock trial event.

When she catches him staring, she sticks out her tongue.

A smile spreads involuntarily across his face.

Her eyebrows twitch in question.

He’s still trying to figure out where the hell to go from there when the kettle starts screeching.

They leave the tea to steep—Nathaniel sets a timer on his phone—and then wander back outside.

“So,” Rebecca says, planting her foot on the balcony wall and rocking them gently back and forth. “What kind of insomnia are we dealing with here?”

“There are different kinds?” he asks, grateful to her for breaking the silence.

She scoffs at him. “Amateur.”

“Alright, Princess Sleepless. Enlighten me.”

“Okay, well, there’s the too-many-thoughts-god-brain-shut-up flavor of insomnia.”

“Oh, I definitely have that one,” he says.

“You haven’t even heard the others,” she chastises. He gestures for her to continue. “There’s also I’ve-been-doing-school-work-for-so-long-I-don’t-want-to close-my-eyes-or-I’ll-see-flashcards-and-highlighters-fuck-so-many-highlighters insomnia.”

He shudders. “Get out of my head.”

She nods sympathetically. “And then there’s my personal favorite: why-am-I-even-alive-I-screw-everything-up-everything-is-horrible-I’m-horrible-and-I-don’t-deserve-sleep insomnia.”

“Ah.”

“Yup. So…you’re definitely in the midst of type one insomnia?”

He opens his mouth to answer, but then his cell starts to chime.

“Tea,” he says instead, holding up the phone.

A few moments later, they settle back onto the loveseat, steaming mugs in hand.

Rebecca’s watching him expectantly—he can feel her eyes on him—but he can’t bring himself to broach the subject, to scale the giant wall he’s erected between them.

So, instead—because he definitely owes it to her to be the one to initiate the conversation this time—he says, “Mock trial, huh?”

“Excuse me?”

“Your sweatshirt.”

“Oh, right. You’re not the only one with a shrine to old case law, you know.” She punches him playfully in the arm.

“You’re studying law?” he asks, keeping his tea steady as he shifts in his seat.

“I didn’t mention that?”

“We haven’t really talked that much.”

She considers this, staring out at the cloudy night sky and licking her lips. “I guess that’s true.”

“So tell me,” he says, nudging her thigh gently with his knee.

“Tell you what?” She cocks her head at him, eyes wide and incredulous.

“About yourself.”

“I thought we weren’t doing this?” she says, gesturing between them.

He hangs his head and clears his throat. “I’m not asking for your life story. Maybe just a couple basic facts.” When she continues to stare without talking, he adds, “Fine. I’ll go first. Let’s see…I just turned twenty-one last month, I’m in my third year of undergrad, my favorite book is _Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix_ , and I think cheetahs are cool.”

Rebecca starts smacking his knee and doesn’t stop. Hot tea splashes out onto his hands, making him wince. “Okay, so, ignoring the fact that you sound more like a twelve-year-old than someone of legal drinking age, oh my god! You like _Harry Potter_!?”

“Stop that,” Nathaniel says, setting his mug on the ground and shooting her a reproving look. “Stop screeching. Other people live, and _sleep_ , in this building.”

She waves that away. “Oh my god, what house are you? I bet you get mistaken for Ravenclaw a lot because you spend all your time studying alone, but true Ravenclaws aren’t really that focused. And I bet you’re not studying for the sake of knowledge itself, are you?”

“I don’t spend all my time studying alone,” he says.

“You kind of do.”

“You’re drawing conclusions from an incomplete sample,” he points out.

She shrugs. “You’re probably a Slytherin, huh? All that work has got to be serving your grand ambitions.”

“Got me all figured out, do you?” he asks. She raises her eyebrows, silently daring him to contradict her. “Yeah, fine, I’m a Slytherin.”

“Gross,” she says, and he grunts, offended.

“Mock all you want, but at least I’m not a walking Gryffindor cliché.”

She narrows her eyes at him, getting suddenly serious. “Neither am I.”

“Oh, come on! Your boyfriend sends you one email about wishing you could spend the holiday together and you travel across the country to make it happen? That’s the kind of brash and daring behavior I’d only expect from a Gryffindor.”

Rebecca lets that sink in for a moment, a small smile tugging at her lips. “You think I’m daring?”

He rolls his eyes. “It’s your turn. Tell me about yourself.”

“Well, I’m a Gryffindor, apparently.”

“What else?”

She draws in a deep breath and then lets it out in a short gust. “My father left when I was a kid, because of that my mom resents my entire existence, and I’m studying law in a futile attempt to make up for derailing her entire life, I guess.”

“Huh.”

Rebecca takes a sip of her tea and turns her head away from him. “I think I’m bad at this game.”

“Yeah, well.” He pauses, swallowing hard and then ducking down to retrieve his mug. “I won’t hold it against you.”

Her humorless laugh hangs in the air between them as they sit silently, drinking and watching the clouds shift listlessly in the night sky.

“Hey man, I’m sorry for reading your letter,” she says finally, her voice strained.

He shakes his head. “It’s fine. Let’s not—”

“No, it’s not. Not really. I can’t even explain why I felt the need to do it other than I’m fucked up and invasive, but I regretted it almost immediately. I mean, I was expecting something scandalous…but it was a really nice card. You seem like you really admire Darryl.”

“I do,” Nathaniel says, fixing his stare on the depths of his tea.

“So?”

“So, nothing. It doesn’t change anything.”

“I looked you up, you know,” she says. “Last night…I was totally ready to get gone in the middle of the night if you turned out to be an axe murderer or something.”

“If there was record of me being an axe murderer, I would be in jail.”

“Not the point.”

“You’re trying to make a point?” he asks, a yawn overtaking him at the end of the question. With a sleepy sigh, he rests his head against the back of the loveseat.

She jabs him in the side with her elbow and then stretches her legs out in front of her, rocking them a little. “There’s actually a lot of information about you out there in cyberspace. Probably comes with the Plimpton territory, right?”

He glances over at her and something meaningful passes between them when their eyes lock.

“You’d rather be a musical theater major,” he says softly, and Rebecca hums in agreement.

After a moment, she adds, “It doesn’t change anything.”

“Yeah.”

They finish their tea without saying anything else, the only noises the light whistling of the wind and the creak of the loveseat rocking back and forth. Nathaniel lets himself be lulled by the movement.

He’s not really sure how much time passes, but when his neck starts to cramp, he silently rises and heads for the door.

“Where does that leave us?” Rebecca asks, stopping him before he slides it shut again.

“Hm?”

She cranks her whole body around in her seat to look at him. “On the whole not-friends deal…where does tonight leave us?”

“Good question,” he says, blinking sleepily. Then he flashes her a coy smile and slides the door shut.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you to Bethany for being the best beta I could ever ask for.
> 
> I'm sorry this chapter has taken me so long to finish. I think we're all hoping the next one comes a little sooner.

“Since we’re friends now,” Rebecca says, making Nathaniel yelp with surprise, “I’m going to do you a favor.”

“Christ, how long have you been awake?” he asks, catching himself on his desk as his heart works to restart itself.

“Never went to sleep,” she replies breezily. “Did you hear me?”

“Was too busy having a heart attack,” he says, pulling out the rolling chair so he can tug on his running shoes. “You’re watching ‘Meet the Press’ without the sound—why?”

“I didn’t want to wake you.”

“Follow up question: you’re watching Meet the Press—why?”

She shrugs. “Habit, I guess. I’ve watched every Sunday since I was on my high school’s debate team.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You’re the one who asked,” she says. “Stop judging my answer.”

“Oh, I’m not. This is riveting stuff, really, but I’m going on a run. I’ll be back in about an hour.”

Rebecca pushes up off the couch and steps in his way. “Whoa there, buddy.”

Nathaniel frowns at her. “What now?”

“I told you: now that we’re friends, I’m doing you a favor.”

“I never said we were friends,” he reminds her.

She dismisses that with a wave of her hand. “You never said we weren’t, either.”

He lets out an exasperated sigh, but doesn’t argue the point further. “What’s the favor?”

Pleased with his easy submission, she squeals and claps. “Yes! Okay, the favor starts with you abandoning everything you have scheduled for today.” When he opens his mouth to argue, she waggles a stern finger in his face. “Don’t even—the spring semester doesn’t start for, like, three weeks. There’s no way the stuff you’ve been working on is actually pressing in any way.”

“You make having a work ethic sound like the worst thing in the world.”

“Because it is. Working when you’re on vacation? Bleh.”

“I have stuff to do,” he says, because he’s not just going to let her push him around. It doesn’t matter that she has a point and all his self-imposed tasks can be put off for a day or two, until he’s home and in need of any excuse to avoid spending time with his parents. It’s the principle of the thing. “I can’t just sit around and entertain you all day.”

She levels him with a stern look, the effect of which is slightly marred by the angry flush working its way into her cheeks. “This isn’t about me. This is about your pathetic, hobbit-y existence.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re extremely charming?”

“We’re going shopping,” she says, ignoring the sarcasm and snapping her fingers in his face. “So, c’mon, grab your car keys. Not a second to waste.”

He pushes her hand away. “You can’t just tell me what to do and expect me to fall in line.”

She cocks an eyebrow and flares her nostrils at him.

He narrows his eyes.

She jerks her chin up, all stubborn and defiant.

“Fine!” he finally grits out, seeing that she’s not going to give up any time soon. The only reasonable thing to do is back down, really. “Where are we going?”

“You’ll find out when we get there,” she says, doing a little shimmy before skipping toward the door.

He does not like the sound of that.

###

“Are you kidding me?”

“Not in the slightest.”

“I’m not going in there,” Nathaniel says, though he continues to drive around the very packed parking lot, narrowly avoiding other cars that pull out too fast and people who obviously don’t care if this ends up being the place they die horribly.

“Why not?”

“Because, despite my competitiveness, I’m not keen on being the first Plimpton to ever step foot in a Walmart.”

Rebecca scoffs as he finally pulls into a parking space and turns off the car. “You’re such a snob.”

“I’m a snob because I don’t want to walk into the worst pit of despair capitalism has to offer during peak retail season? I mean just look at them…packing themselves in there by the hundreds. Awful.”

“Oh, you’re right,” she says, leveling him with a disbelieving stare. “How could I have missed how down-to-earth you are?”

“Thousands of people in one warehouse. I bet it smells like BO and plastic, with just a hint of defeat.”

“Does plastic even have a distinct smell?”

“It smells like sweatshop labor.”

She narrows her eyes. “So…more BO?”

“Yes, exactly!”

“You’re unbelievable,” she says, and then gets out of the car.

He groans before following after her reluctantly.

“What are we even doing here?” he asks, catching up to her easily.

“You’ll see.”

“Do we really need to maintain the air of mystery? You got me here, completely at your mercy in this foreign land.”

She scoffs, throwing an incredulous look at him over her shoulder as they approach the front of the store. “And people say _I’m_ dramatic.”

He ignores her. “Oh, good god, is that an inflatable Santa on a surfboard?”

“It sure is. Want one? I think we could fit it out on the balcony.”

“No way am I buying that or any of the other tacky decorations they sell here.”

This time the look she shoots him is sheepish, and he stops in his tracks, right in the middle of the lobby.

“No fucking way, Rebecca.”

“But your apartment is so dull and lifeless,” she whines. “It’s like no one actually lives there.” When he crosses his arms over his chest and refuses to budge, she pouts out her lower lip. “C’mon, it’ll be fun.We’re gonna make our very own Winter Wonderland.”

“No,” he says, turning to march back out of the store before the phrase ‘ _our very own_ ’ can actually start to affect him.

She catches his arm, though, and stares up at him with wide, pleading puppy eyes. “Do it for me?”

“Buy Christmas decorations for you? You’re Jewish.”

“I’m planning on picking up some of the Chanukah necessities, as well.”

He closes his eyes and inhales deeply though his nose.

Taking that as acquiescence, Rebecca tugs him further into the store.

###

“There’s no way you need eight menorahs,” Nathaniel says, leaning against the cart as she picks up another—only slightly different from the last—squints at it, and then tosses it in.

“Sure I do,” she says. “One for each night.”

“Wait, I thought each arm was for one night?”

“Are you, a non-Jew, trying to tell me how to celebrate my people?”

He rolls his eyes, but doesn’t push her. “Fine—you win.”

“As I thought.”

A minute later, when she starts piling boxes of multicolored lights into the cart, he protests again. “Okay, Christmas is firmly my territory, and I _know_ we don’t need all of those.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, it’s on the list,” she says, waving her cell at him.

“You made a list?” he asks, grabbing the phone out of her hands and scrolling through the way-too-long note she’d composed.

“At, like, four a.m.”

“What do we need a sack of potatoes for?”

“We’re making latkes,” she says, waffling over another package of lights.

“And who’s bankrolling this very festive shopping trip?” he asks, having still not reached the end of her list.

She shoots him a disbelieving look.

“I hate you,” he says.

She smirks at him, unbothered.

###

It takes them nearly half an hour to unload everything from the car, including the oblong box with the fake tree Rebecca insisted they get.

“Rest time,” she declares as soon as they’ve organized everything and flops down onto the couch. “Nathaniel, be a dear and start putting together the tree without me?”

“You know, soon enough this ordering-me-around shit is going to stop working.”

“Well, since it obviously hasn’t yet: chop, chop.”

He shoots her a narrowed-eyed look, and she responds with a huge, toothy smile.

With an exasperated sigh, he drops to his knees and uses his keys to slice the tape on the box.

“Tha-anks,” she says, the drawn-out word coming through her nose in a nasal sing-song.

The assembly of the tree is pretty straightforward. All the individual branches click into the long, cylindrical base; they just need to be fluffed first to give the appearance of fullness.

“This is drying out my skin,” Nathaniel complains as he starts building out the second largest circle of branches. “I hope you appreciate the sacrifice I’m making here.”

“I’d appreciate it a lot more if you actually put some effort into the presentation,” she says, pointing at the awkwardly bent branch he’s holding with her toe. “That’s terrible.”

“If you want it to look nice, get up and help me.”

She makes a show of considering it before nestling deeper into the couch cushions. “Hmm, pass.”

“Then I don’t want any more lip from you.”

She mimes zipping and locking, but no more than a couple minutes later, she says, “You’d think you’d be better at this. Isn’t the Christmas tree the symbolic center of your whole WASP-y holiday?”

He tosses the half-fluffed branch in his hands at her face.

She squeals and rolls out of the way, falling to the floor, but not before the projectile hits her in the shoulder.

“You’re a sucky shot, too,” she says, sitting up and flinging the branch at his feet. “Disgraceful.”

When he grabs another one from the box and draws back his arm, she throws her hands up in surrender.

“Okay, okay. I swear I’ll be quiet now.”

“Uh-huh.”

Several minutes later, when she still hasn’t spoken and he’s put forth the minimal effort into sculpting the top of the tree, Nathaniel glances over at her, about to comment on how impressive her newfound will-power is.

Her face is relaxed, eyes closed and lips parted, and her chest is rising and falling with deep breaths. Asleep.

A slow grin creeps across his face, and, after a moment, he goes to his room and grabs one of the throws draped along the bottom of his bed.

She lets out a soft, appreciative sigh that tugs at something deep in his chest when he drapes it over her.

###

“Rebecca? Rebecca, c’mon. Time to get up now.”

“No,” she mutters, turning her back to him and shrugging his hand off her shoulder.

“I finished decorating without you,” he says, shifting forward on the coffee table so he can talk right in her ear. “I strung all the lights, put the ornaments on the tree, and set up that stupid light-up penguin on the porch and everything. So if you’re trying to get out of doing work, there’s no need for the ruse.”

She pulls the blanket up over her head, blocking him out. “Dunno what you’re talking about.”

“Sure,” he says. “Come on now. You gotta teach me how to make potato pancakes, which, by the way, sound disgusting and I will not be eating them.”

“I’m not ready to be a butterfly,” she says, making him frown in confusion. “I gotta spend five more minutes in the nice-smelling cocoon.”

“I see,” he says, smirking at the implication that she likes the way he smells. “But if you’re awake enough to make bad metaphors, there’s no turning back.”

“Your face is a bad metaphor,” she says, but she finally sits up and rubs her eyes.

“Your face is just plain bad,” he retaliates.

She scrunches her nose at him and cocks her head. “Rude.”

He shrugs and then stands. “You asked for it. Now get your ass into the kitchen and tell me what to do with the potatoes I spent two hours peeling and shredding.”

She pushes herself up off the couch and reorients the throw so it’s wrapped around her shoulders. “Okay, ready.”

“No way. You’re not getting grease all over my blanket.”

“I won’t,” she says, pouting out her lower lip.

“That’s not gonna work. Not this time.”

“But I need it to keep me warm. My best friend knew that when he draped it over me while I was asleep,” she says, tilting her head to the side and fixing him with a pointed stare. “He did it ‘cause he really, really cares about me.”

“You sure?”

“Oh, a hundred percent,” she says with a smirk.

“Well then he sounds like a real sucker,” Nathaniel says, quirking an eyebrow at her.

Rebecca sighs and drops the blanket back onto the couch. “You should probably just admit that we’re friends and get it over with, dude.”

“Never.”

“That’s fine. Enjoy the comfort of your delusion while you still can ‘cause I’m totally gonna make you say it,” she says, giving him a mischievous look that he feels in the pit of his stomach as she walks past on the way to the kitchen.

He takes a deep breath in through his nose before following.

Rebecca’s already gotten to work beating a couple eggs, which she dumps into a large bowl full of the grated potatoes. Nathaniel grabs the half-full carton off the counter, sticks it in the fridge, and then leans against it and watches.

Soon, the kitchen is filled with hissing and the heady scent of frying potatoes.

“God,” she says, inhaling. “Do you have a smell that, out of all the other smells, can transport you back to holidays as a kid without fail? ‘Cause this is it for me. I smell latkes, and I’m back in Aunt Devorah’s kitchen, sitting at the kitchen table reading _Dear America_ books as she and my mom gossip about the people from temple and the people from work and basically everyone they’ve ever met.”

He snorts, amused, but she’s too absorbed in recalling holidays past to pay him much mind.

“My aunt would always sneak me one of the fresh latkes,” she continues, “and my mom would always catch us and make a comment about how I should think about limiting my starch intake, and then Aunt Devorah would tell my mom to stop being so frigid because it was destroying her marriage, to which my mom would reply ‘ _I’d rather be frigid and unhappily married than a frigid, barren spinster_ ’.”

Rebecca sighs wistfully, and Nathaniel raises his eyebrows. “Cheery memories?”

“Well, you know,” she says, flipping the latkes currently in the skillet and then throwing him a wry look. “It’s family.”

“Yeah,” he agrees.

“So what’s yours?”

“What’s my what?”

“Your smell. What takes you back?”

“Right,” he says, chewing on the inside of his cheek as he thinks. It doesn’t take long for the answer to jump out at him. “Pine-scented candles.”

“That’s it?” Rebecca asks after a moment.

“I answered your question. What more do you want?”

She wags the turner at him playfully. “I gave you the whole experience, man. C’mon, set the scene for me.”

He shakes his head, and she sticks her tongue out at him but turns her attention back to the skillet, dropping the subject.

“We never had a tree when I was a kid,” he finds himself saying after a beat. When she tilts her head at him, he pushes off from the fridge, crossing the kitchen so he’s leaning against the edge of the counter behind her. “Fake or real. Too messy. So my mom would place pine candles in every room of our house and burn them all through the month of December. I don’t know who she thought she was fooling, us or our guests or whomever.”

Rebecca scoops the finished latkes onto a plate and adds new ones to the pan, then turns her back to the stovetop. “Okay, I can work with that.”

He feels his forehead wrinkle.

“I’m imagining really high ceilings—like ridiculous and extravagant. The kind where you have to crane your neck to see. The kind that makes you think, ‘Hmm, I could fit a really tall Christmas tree in here’,” she says, and he lets out an amused almost-laugh despite himself. “I’m also getting, like, these lifeless white walls that start to burn your eyes if you look directly at them for too long.”

“Actually,” he says, “most of the walls are covered in this hideous, busy floral wallpaper to overwhelm the senses and distract you from the instinctual fear that soulless beings live there.”

“Oh, even better,” she says, smirking at him. “I can see it now.”

“I hope for your sake it’s not a very clear picture.”

She purses her lips, holding in a chuckle. “Okay, let’s circle back to the guests, then. I’m guessing most of them were over the age of forty, but they all had enough plastic surgery to make them look more like dolls than real people.”

“There was definitely some uncanny valley action.” She gasps in horror, and he nods. “To this day, I don’t have sufficient evidence that my Aunt Sissy is definitely human and not just vaguely humanoid.”

She waggles her eyebrows and grins. “Please tell me she kept her face partially obstructed with one of those obnoxiously floppy hats. Or, oh! An eyepatch!”

“No to the eyepatch,” he says, finding himself grinning back, “but a resounding yes to the hat.”

She pumps her fist. “I knew it. Tell me she had a matching dress—one of those stiff numbers that look only mildly itchy but feel like you’re immersing yourself in a tub full of sandpaper.”

“I wouldn’t know what they felt like, but I can confirm her dresses always matched her hat and looked uncomfortably stiff. I always hated the dress code for family holidays. I had to wear these awful waistcoats that were too heavy and made my dress shirts stick to my back. And now that you’ve forced me to relive this suffering, I think I kind of hate you.”

She scoffs at him and turns around to flip the latkes. “Please, you think that’s suffering? You’ve never had to put on tights to go to temple as a nine-year old. There’s screaming, crying, and actual bloodshed when you end up tripping over the feet as you’re trying to use the momentum from jumping up and down to hike them further up your legs and end up falling into the sharp corner of your nightstand.”

He cringes, and she nods at him.

They’re both silent for a beat, and then she says, “You know, we should really go all out.”

“I thought we were.” He gestures around them to the lights he’d strung through the whole apartment earlier.

“No, I mean, we should celebrate the way we used to! Recreate our childhood holidays.”

He eyes her skeptically. “I’m not throwing together a last-minute party on your behalf. And not just because two-thirds of the student body isn’t even here.”

“Okay, first of all, two people can be a party if one of those people is Rebecca Bunch.”

“You’ve never been to a real party in your life,” he says.

She sneers at him. “That’s not the point, Mr. Snooty.”

“What is your point?”

“We should dress up and drink cocktails and have an extravagant dinner. You know, take this crappy nostalgia and turn it into something better. Something worth remembering fondly.”

It’s a dumb idea—fanciful and sentimental and just plain silly. Yet, he finds himself smiling.

“Alright.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I mean, why not?”

She bobs up and down excitedly. “That’s the spirit!”

###

Nathaniel studies himself in the mirror, trying to keep the feelings of foolishness at bay as he fusses with his nearly-dry hair.

It’s just so weird to be standing in his bedroom in slacks, a purple dress shirt, and a black waistcoat knowing that he’s not going anywhere. It’s even weirder knowing that it’s not close to the most absurd thing he’s done today simply because Rebecca asked.

Without making eye contact with himself so he doesn’t have to see the smile forming on his face, he turns to his sock drawer and rummages through it, looking for his pair of thick, black dress socks.

Instead, he comes up with the purple polka-dotted bowtie he’d had to wear to the International Legal Honor Society’s cystic fibrosis fundraiser at the beginning of the semester. After a second of consideration, he does up the last couple buttons on his shirt and secures the tie around his neck.

The first two thoughts that run through his head as he studies the complete look are _My father would definitely have some cutting comment about this_ and _Rebecca’s gonna love it_.

Sure enough, when they run into each other in the hall—Rebecca having just gotten out of the shower—she unleashes a megawatt smile on him. “Hey, nice bowtie.”

His hands fly up to his collar so he can straighten it. “Thanks.”

“I’m gonna hurry up and change,” she says, calling his attention away from her face to the fact that she’s not wearing anything but a damp towel tucked securely under her arms. He swallows thickly. “You should make us some cocktails.”

“That was _so close_ to sounding more like a request than a demand,” he says, pleased when his voice doesn’t betray fact that his mouth has gone suddenly dry. “I’m touched.”

“Oh, save it,” she says, her eyes crawling down the length of his body. “You’ve been falling all over yourself to meet my demands today. You love it when I boss you around.”

He cocks his head at her, lips twitching with amusement, and takes a step into her personal space. Her breath catches in her throat.

Intriguing.

“Say please,” he says, dropping his voice low.

Her eyes fix onto his lips. “Please, Nathaniel, would you make us some cocktails.”

“But of course,” he says, backing down the hall.

She rolls her eyes at him, but he notices the shaky, steadying breath she takes before diving into her room.

“Alcohol…that’s just what this situation needs,” he says under his breath as he surveys his small collection of liquor. “Surely the ticket to avoid making out with your roommate—your roommate with a boyfriend—is to impair your self-control. Fucking brilliant, Captain.”

After a second of lingering on the mental image, he clears his throat and grabs a bottle of wine.

###

“Come on, man. You have to try one. At least one.”

“Are you serious? I saw how much oil you used making them. And do you know how many carbs are in just one of those things? There’s no way.”

“Try one or you’re anti-Semitic,” Rebecca says, the gleam in her eyes taunting him as she waves a latke in his face. Even in the dim glow of the Christmas tree and menorah-provided candlelight, he’s hit with the full effect of her impish smirk.

“Really?” Nathaniel asks, playing unimpressed. “Right to antisemitism, huh?”

She shrugs as if to say _Don’t look at me, I don’t make the rules_.

They’ve been picking at the dregs of dinner for nearly an hour, content to simply hang out at the table and let the evening tug them in whatever direction as a holiday-themed playlist tinkles out of Nathaniel’s laptop.

“Well?” Rebecca prods, wiggling the latke some more.

“I’m getting sick from the smell alone. There’s no way I’m putting that in my mouth.”

She pouts out her lower lip, giving him a final, pleading look. He laughs and shakes his head, watching as she shrugs, dips the thing in the container of leftover cream cheese, and then shoves it in her mouth.

“Must you do that with every one you eat?” he asks.

“Um, yes, it’s absolutely essential. You’d know that if you weren’t such a coward.”

“I’m happy to be a coward who’ll live past the age of forty without ever having a heart attack.”

Quirking an eyebrow at him, she grabs another latke before using her finger to spread a glob of the schmear along the top.

He shudders, overdramatic, to divert her attention away from the fact that he can’t stop smiling.

Their first round of drinks is long since finished, and Nathaniel’s more than willing to write off the warmth he feels gathering in his chest as a product of the alcohol. It’s either that or he’s charmed by her more disgusting habits.

And that simply can’t be it—there’s no way.

“So this is the edge of my influence, huh?” Rebecca asks, thankfully swallowing before she speaks. “I was kinda hoping alcohol would make you more willing to do my bidding, not less.”

“I was never doing your bidding.”

The fact that it comes out as an offended squawk doesn’t do him any favors, and she gives him a look that’s all haughty and knowing.

“Whatever you have to tell yourself to sleep at night,” she says. “We’re not friends, and you _definitely_ aren’t moldable putty in my hands. Uh-huh, sure.”

He bites back the comment about how he’d certainly like to be so long as she’s offering because he hasn’t had enough alcohol to make such a dangerously forward pass at her.

Clearing his throat, he grabs their wine glasses and moves to the kitchen for a refill.

“Okay, so,” she says when he comes back, accepting the drink with a grateful nod, “if you’re going to reject the food of my people out of hand, I demand retribution.”

“This ought to be good.”

“You have to answer a question, no sarcasm or pretense.”

“Pass.”

“You don’t get to pass.”

Nathaniel looks at his newly full glass and says, “Alcohol, give me the power to resist,” before taking a gulp. “Ah, feeling more empowered already.”

Rebecca pouts out her lower lip. “Please? Just one question.”

He rolls his eyes to the ceiling, definitely not picturing all the things he’d like to do to that lip.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because it’s fun to watch you squirm,” she says, mirthful.

“A single question,” he allows. When she pumps her fist in response, he sighs. “I already regret agreeing to this.”

“No! No, no, no. I promise, I just…” She trails off, eyes locking onto his as she leans in across the table. Something in her expression makes his heart twist with anxious excitement and he leans in, too. “You seem like the kind of person who’d be popular.”

“I’m confused,” he says, rolling his wrists self-consciously. “Which part of that was a question?”

She winces, and he wants to scoff at himself for noticing the endearing way she throws her whole body into it. “I guess I’m wondering…why aren’t you?”

“How do you know I’m not?” he asks, sitting back in his seat and crossing is arms over his chest.

“You’re supposed to answer without the pretense, remember?”

He raises his eyebrows. “I can’t answer a question I don’t understand.”

“Okay, you’re clearly stalling,” Rebecca says, tucking her legs under her so she can lean even further into the table.

“Indulge me for a moment,” he says. “You’ve known me for two and a half days—and that’s being generous. The first night we met, you accused me of constantly hooking up with women, without their consent even. What’s made you change your tune?”

“There’s a very slight possibility,” Rebecca says, “that I leapt to an unfair judgement.”

When her eyes drop to his mouth, Nathaniel finds himself wetting his lips. “Is that so?”

“Yeah,” she says, her voice low. He swallows hard in response. “Because in these two and half days, I’ve seen the real Nathaniel.”

“Have you now?” A nervous edge creeps into his voice, making him feel utterly ridiculous.

“Yup. And, _boy_ , he’s a nerd.”

The tension rushes out of him, and he jabs a finger in her face. “Hey now, if you’re going to make assumptions like that, you better have evidence to back it up.”

“You want evidence?” He nods. “For starters, you spent an entire Saturday by yourself doing chores.”

An affronted snort comes out before he can stop it. “Chores?”

“The early-morning workouts, the constant studying. They’re self-imposed chores. Am I wrong?”

“Having the ability to discipline myself is not an inherently nerdy trait,” he points out, trying not to sound too disgusted.

“Granted,” she says, smirking at him. “But…”

“What?”

“There’s also the Whitefeather party.”

“Come on, now you’re reaching”

She holds up her hands. “I’m just saying, you’re recently twenty-one, right? Any normal twenty-one year old would be going to a rager on a Saturday night.”

“How would you know,” he snips, but she talks on over him.

“Instead, you went to a work party. You’re like a nerdy forty-year-old with no friends.”

“Just because I won’t officially accept your friendship doesn’t mean I don’t have any friends at all.”

“Officially? As in you’ve _un_ officially accepted it?”

“You’re not getting anywhere, Bunch. Just drop it.”

“We can table the friendship thing,” she says, “but I’m not finished with my question.”

“All I hear is you jabbering on about how you’ve got me all figured out. So why even bother asking—shouldn’t you already know?”

She ignores that. “You never talk on the phone with anyone. No one’s come over. George was terrified of you. I just want to know why you choose this life of solitude when you could be living it up as the big man on campus.”

Her insistence that he’s a huge friendless loser starts to grate. He takes a deep breath and rests his elbows on the edge of the table. “What about you, huh?”

“What do you mean?”

“I haven’t seen or heard you touch base with this boyfriend of yours. What’s the deal there?”

Her eyelids flutter and she blanches. “H-how would you know that we haven’t talked? You don’t know me, and you don’t know Josh. And, god, I guess I’ll think twice about asking you questions next time. No wonder you’re friendless, Mister Chamber of Secrets.”

“Defensive. Interesting.”

“Not that it’s any of your business, but we-we email. A lot. All the time, even.”

“Uh-huh.”

“What now?” she asks, her mouth getting all tight.

“If you were my girlfriend and traveling across the country to see me—getting in strangers’ cars, no less—I’d be calling a couple times a day to make sure you’re okay.”

That comes out a lot more impassioned than Nathaniel intends, but he keeps his poker face firmly in place. Maybe if he doesn’t call attention to it, Rebecca won’t even notice.

“The visit’s a surprise,” she reminds him, ducking her head. “He doesn’t know I’m doing this.”

He shrugs. “Whatever.”

That irritates her. “Josh isn’t a phone guy, okay?”

“What does that even mean?”

“We just don’t like talking on the phone.”

“Didn’t you call Paula last night after I went to bed?” When she scrunches her face up at him in confusion, he says, “Thin walls.”

“Fine. So what?”

“Seeing as it’s unlikely that Paula was calling _you_ at three in the morning, I can only assume you’re more of a phone person than you’re letting on. And if he really liked you, he’d make an exception every now and then.”

“Maybe he does! How would you know? We’ve only known each other for two and a half days. Barely. That’s not a big enough sample size.” She sticks her tongue out at him.

He recognizes the arguments and holds his palms up in surrender. “Truce?”

She eyes him for a second before nodding.

“Truce.”

But the words don’t take hold, and they continue to glower at each other from across the table. When the tension becomes too much for him to take, Nathaniel grabs their empty dishes and walks them into the kitchen to clear them off.

When he glances back, she’s disappeared.

###

“Well then,” Rebecca says, popping up at Nathaniel’s elbow. “That concludes the ‘Storming Off to Separate Rooms’ portion of the evening.”

He considers her for a second, a smile creeping up on him. “A most hallowed Plimpton tradition.”

“Sometimes the Garfinkel clan loses two whole nights of Chanukah to the yearly freeze-out.”

He laughs and turns his attention back to the view of the parking lot. “You know, it’s usually my favorite part. I always looked forward to the quiet time alone.”

“Usually?” she asks, leaning against the balcony railing next to him.

“Tonight, it was probably the worst part of the evening by far.”

“Yeah?” she asks, her voice soft and surprised. Nathaniel both desperately wants to look at her and knows that it’s a terrible idea. He is on his third glass of wine, after all.

“Yeah.”

“How does me napping through potato peeling rank?”

“Hmm, it’s up there.”

He lets his eyes slip closed as she laughs, savoring the sound.

“So, as a whole, how’s your first Christmas-Tree-Having Christmas?”

He twists to look at the bright shining tree inside before his eyes land on her. She’s smiling up at him, her eyes somehow twinklier than the multicolored lights.

“I think I’ve grown dangerously attached,” he says, voice low.

Her lips part in surprise, and he has to look away from her. He’s had a lot of practice reigning in the most basic impulses, but the need to kiss Rebecca is by far the hardest to control. Keeping still makes his muscles ache with effort.

“Oh, my god, it’s Carol of the Bells!”

He practically jumps out of his skin when she grabs onto his arm. “Huh?”

“It’s an Excelsingers staple,” she says. “They do it at every holiday concert.”

“Okay…” He trails off. “Does that have something to do with why you’re bouncing around like a kid who just discovered caffeine?”

She claps. “I choreographed a dance to the song.”

“This song?”

“Yes this song! What other song would I be talking about?”

He shrugs. “The melody just doesn’t strike me as very…danceable.”

“And you would know because you do so much dancing, right?”

“Touché.”

“I might still remember it.”

“Then by all means,” he says, gesturing for her to show him.

She bites her lip, closes her eyes, and does a few half-hearted steps, complete with understated hand movements. “Yeah, okay, I’ve definitely still got it.”

He frowns, intrigued, and steps into the balcony doorway as Rebecca backs up into the open space of his living room. For a moment she simply stands there, mouthing something to herself. He watches, taking in her flushed creeks and the way she’s bobbing up and down in time to the music.

And then suddenly she launches into action. The flurry of it is overwhelming. As far as Nathaniel can tell, it’s some kind of modern dance with a lot of gesticulation and full-body convulsions. The whole routine is ridiculous and frenetic and, all in all, totally charming.

“Well?” she asks, breathless as she lands in her final pose. “What’d you think?”

“You want my honest opinion?”

She drops her arms to her sides and eyes him with suspicion. “As long as it’s your sensitive honesty.”

He laughs. “You are…surprisingly nimble.”

Her chin juts out, and he can tell that she’s trying to decide if that’s a compliment or an insult. “That’s it? That’s all you have to say?”

“As you correctly assumed, I don’t do much dancing. That’s all I’ve got,” he says, shrugging.

“Okay,” she says, holding out her hand to him. “Let’s dance.”

“Now?”

“‘ _No, with my father’_ ,” Rebecca sings.

“Huh?”

“Theater reference. It’s—never mind. Come dance with me,” she says, waving her outstretched hand.

“Why?”

“Because it’s fun!”

“I don’t know,” he says, feeling the alcohol moving through his bloodstream and making his limbs heavy.

“Oh, come on,” she says, marching over to him and grabbing his arm. “You’re gonna give in to me eventually. Let’s not waste time.”

“You’re not as inevitable as you think you are,” he says, though he barely even puts up a half-hearted resistance as she drags him onto her makeshift dance floor.

“You’re not as above-it-all as you think you are,” she shoots back, pivoting so they’re standing toe-to-toe.

Even if he wanted to protest, he can’t deny the way his heart squeezes involuntarily as he looks down at her.

“Do you have a fully choreographed dance to ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’ up your sleeve, too?” he asks instead.

“Not exactly,” she says.

He’s about to ask what the hell they’re doing, then, when she pops up onto her tiptoes and throws her arms around his neck.

The only reason his hands find her hips so quickly in response is that she’s knocked herself off balance. He’s just trying to steady her, is all. Except that turns into swaying softly to the music almost by accident, and, before he realizes what’s happening, they’re slow dancing in his dimly lit living room.

She lets out a contented sigh, and he feels her chest shifting against his. Realizing just how close they are now, he gulps and fixes his stare on the wall. Looking her in the eye would be to tempt fate in a big way.

Instead, he does his best to drink in her proximity with his other senses. Her recently-washed hair is fragrant—her shampoo something light and feminine—and it sends his head swimming when he draws in a deep breath. He’s acutely aware of the way the curve of her palm fits against his neck, the press of her fingertips so firm it makes his scalp tingle. The heat of her body radiates through her silken blouse, and it makes his hands sting as they adjust to the burn.

He tries not to notice the fact that her shirt’s come untucked from the elastic band of her skirt, but he’s too tempted by the promise of skin. With just a simple twist of his wrists, he could be touching her— _yes_ , like that. Her hips are soft and pliant, yielding easily under his flexing fingers.

He closes his eyes. God, it’s as exhausting as running a marathon, being this close to her and not kissing her. He’s starting to forget every reason he should deny himself.

“It’s a control thing,” he blurts out then, hoping she doesn’t take note of the way his pulse is thundering under his skin.

“Hmm?” He feels her crane her neck to study his face. “What’s a control thing?”

He opens his eyes. She’s staring at him, all confused, blue eyes and kind, lopsided smile.

“Not being popular,” he says.

She nods, but continues to watch him, pensive. After a moment, she asks, “Are you gonna make me drag more out of you?”

He gives her a subdued smile. “No. It’s…it’s hard to explain.”

“I get it. You don’t have to say anything else.”

“You’re going to get your complete answer,” he says. “No pretense or sarcasm.”

She smiles, pleased. “Okay.”

They sway silently for a couple moments before he says, “It’s like this. I’m expected to get as much as I can out of my time in college: be an exemplary student, a star athlete.”

“Score the most prestigious internships?” she guesses, and he feels all at once breathlessly excited and stomach-droppingly terrified that she gets it.

“Exactly! And none of those things come without a major time investment.”

“So, you don’t have friends because…?”

“Because they require time, too. And so if I stay committed to the task at hand and pretend like it’s my choice, like I decided to sacrifice friendship in the name of being the best…then I can trick myself into believing it’s true.”

“And the control is yours,” Rebecca says, her expression twisting with some emotion Nathaniel can’t place.

“Stupid, right?”

She squeezes his neck, making him feel a little wobbly. “I think there’s a certain logic to it.”

“I’ve seen the way you live your life. Your approval doesn’t actually make me feel better,” he teases.

She shakes her head at him, laughing.

They fall silent, Rebecca clearly lost in thought. He tries, and fails, to not watch her, his eyes drifting down to her lips.

“I guess it’s lucky you met me, then,” she says suddenly, resolute.

He tugs his gaze away from her mouth. “How do you figure?”

“Well,” she says, smirking, “I’m the kind of friend that forces you to make the time for me. So we’ll never have to worry about all your other commitments getting in the way.”

“Lucky indeed,” he says, his heart constricting.

Her eyes widen. “Did you just pass up an opportunity to deny that we’re friends?”

“Yes, and that’s the best you’re gonna get. So don’t make a scene.”

“Noooo, come on,” she says, wiggling in his arms. “Say it! Please? Say it…say it…say it.”

“Not gonna happen,” he says, but his cheeks ache from smiling so wide.

“For me? Say it!”

“I’m wise to your tricks now. That’s not going to work anymore.”

“Wise to my tricks, you say?”

“That’s right.”

With a mischievous glint in her eye, Rebecca tugs on his neck. His heart trips over itself in the hazy moment he’s convinced she’s dragging him down for a kiss, but then she just pushes her forehead up into his, resting there.

“Nathaniel?” Her voice is low, and he feels something tug at the pit of his stomach in response. This close, he can make out the dusting of light freckles on her nose and cheeks.

“Yes?” he asks, throat dry.

“Won’t you admit that we’re friends?”

He swallows thickly. “You seem pretty confident. Are you sure you need to hear it to know it’s true?”

She shakes her head slowly, the tip of her nose brushing against his. “You’re kind of impossible, you know that?”

“You kind of love it.”

Her eyelids are heavy and she pushes fingers up into his hair, nails grazing his skin and making him shudder.

“You’re kind of right,” she whispers.

The soft whine escapes him involuntarily, and Rebecca lets out a puff of a laugh. He feels her breath fan over his face, feels the way she pushes her chin forward ever-so-slightly. An invitation.

Time seems to slow around them, crawling forward and dragging out Nathaniel’s indecision.

Finally, he licks his lips and says, voice hoarse with frustration, “The song stopped.”

Rebecca blinks, and it takes both of them a second to shake off the fog of tension. She drops her arms and takes a step back.

“Right,” she says, ducking her head and rubbing her hand over her mouth, but not before he catches her disappointed frown.

For some reason he tenses, his muscles getting tight with anger…and something else. Something like the kicked-puppy feeling with the volume turned up.

It’s just—she has no right to look like that. Like he just rejected her. He’s only doing the right thing, after all. She seems like the kind of girl who’d be upset about cheating on her fabulous tenor boyfriend, and he’s not interested in being some regretful footnote in this outlandish journey of hers.

Okay, he’s clearly a _little_ interested. But he’s also resolute.

“Where’d I leave my drink?” he asks absentmindedly, scanning the room before remembering he left it out on the balcony.

He shivers when he steps outside and then stops in his tracks.

“Is it snowing?” Rebecca asks, stepping up behind him.

“Looks like.”

They both approach the edge of the balcony, watching as the flakes pick up speed.

“You know, I’ve only ever seen snow, like, three other times in my life,” he says, trying not to sound too awed, like he’s in some terrible, made-for-television holiday movie.

“God, I wish I could say the same,” she says, sticking her hand out into the open air to catch a couple snowflakes in her open palm. “At least this stuff is light and fluffy. It almost looks fake, actually. Like we’re in one of those romantic, made-for-TV holiday movies and the director’s gonna yell cut any second.”

He tries to hang onto the anger—it’s definitely safer than the warmth building in his chest—but completely loses his grip.

“I was just thinking that,” he says.

“You know, if we really were in a movie,” she says, shy and tentative, “this would be the part where you finally kiss me.”

He casts a sidelong glance at her, unable to help himself. She’s watching him, lips parted and eyes wide, and his stomach drops at the transparent hope in her expression.

It’s unclear which of them breaks first. All Nathaniel knows is, one second he’s standing there resisting her with all the willpower he has, and the next he’s snapping like an overworked rubber band.

Kissing Rebecca is all at once exactly like he imagined and so much better. She throws herself into it with the same unchecked enthusiasm she has for everything, hands fisting in his hair and one eager whine after another falling from her lips and onto his tongue.

His alcohol-slowed brain churns with the sensory overload, and he struggles to keep up with her, somehow always half a step behind. When she bows her body into him, forcing them into a dip, it takes him several seconds to wrap his arms around her waist, trapping her securely against his chest. When she breaks away to catch her breath, he’s stuck panting, completely unable to harness the tornado ripping through his lungs. When she draws him back in, he responds slowly, watching the way her eyebrows come together…like it pains her, how much she wants this.

When their lips lock back together, Nathaniel tastes the familiar fruity lip balm. With a groan, he sucks her lower lip into his mouth, licking at the sticky residue.

That catches Rebecca off guard long enough for him to gain the upper hand. Smiling into the kiss, he slides his hands down to her ass and hikes her up into his arms.

More than willing to follow his lead, she wraps her legs around his back, shimmying until she can squeeze his hips securely between her thighs.

Satisfied that she’s got enough leverage to hold on, Nathaniel works his hands up under her blouse, smoothing his palm up her spine. She arches away from the touch.

“Cold hands,” she explains off his confused grunt.

“Right,” he gasps. “Let’s go inside.”

She hums in approval, already leaning back in.

Blindly, he stumbles through the apartment, attention split between kissing Rebecca and trying not to run into a wall. It’s a Christmas miracle that he makes it to his bedroom without breaking anything.

When he finally runs into the edge of his mattress, he pitches forward. They fall onto the bed, a mess of awkward limbs and breathless laughter.

“I really do like this bowtie,” Rebecca says, tracing the shape of it while she shifts into a more comfortable position beneath him. “But it needs to go.”

“I can make that happen,” he says, grinning down at her and pushing off the mattress so he’s kneeling between her legs. Quickly, he unthreads the knot and tosses it away.

No sooner than he plants his hands next to her shoulders does Rebecca start to work on the buttons of his waistcoat. With a moan, he leans down and buries his face in her neck, nosing her hair out of the way so he can smooth his lips over her skin.

“You’re wearing too many layers,” she whines, starting in on the buttons of his shirt as soon as she’s finished with the waistcoat. “Stupid, in-the-way layers.”

“That’s your problem now,” he breathes into the base of her throat, nipping at goosebumps as they appear.

“Ah-ha!” Her triumphant shout makes him laugh, but the sound quickly morphs into a shuddering sigh when her cool fingers slip under his shirt and dance down his sides.

It’s not until she reaches for his belt, tugging roughly at the buckle, that some of his good sense returns.

“Wait,” he says, rolling off her onto his back. “We should stop. This isn’t…you have…”

She climbs over him, straddling his hips and pushing down into him at exactly the right angle to make him groan.

“Just shut up, okay?”

There’s a pleading edge to her voice that should concern him, but one bruising kiss is all it takes to chase the reasons they shouldn’t be doing this away from his mind.

For the first time that day he doesn’t put up a fight. He simply complies with her demand.

###

He’s jostled from sleep later that night, and rolls over, hands searching.

“Rebecca?” he asks, sitting up.

“Shh.” Her voice comes from right next to the bed. “I’ll be back in a minute. Just go back to sleep.”

He flops down into the mattress obediently.

Her warmth lingers in the sheets, and he’s drifting back toward unconsciousness within seconds. He’s so close to slipping over the edge into slumber that he doesn’t really register the kiss Rebecca presses to his temple. He doesn’t hear when she whispers, “Thanks for everything.”

And he most certainly isn’t cognizant enough to recognize the _thud_ that echoes through the apartment several minutes later for what it is—the sound of the front door falling closed.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for seeing another fic through with me, Bethany!
> 
> Merry Christmas in July!   
> (That's totally the reason I've taken so long to post this final chapter. I was waiting to use the joke. No other reason.)

Nathaniel’s not sure if it’s the dull throb in his head or the dryness of his throat that finally stirs him. In either case, he feels completely disoriented when he blinks awake.

With a groan, he presses his face into his pillow, trying to block out the stinging brightness of the room. Maybe if he tries hard enough, he can fall back asleep and put off dealing with the hangover.

But even as he takes a few deep breaths and tries to clear his mind, the events of the night before start coming back to him. His face relaxes into a slow, sleepy smile, and he rolls over in bed, expecting to find…

“Rebecca?” Nathaniel asks, propping himself up on his elbow. The movement makes his head spin a little.

His apartment offers up only silence in response.

Ignoring the twisting of his gut that’s telling him to panic—or possibly to barf—he gingerly gets out of bed, tugging on some underwear and a pair of sweats.

He tries to pace his search in case she is just listening to music or sleeping in another room. After all, he’s not so far gone that he’s gonna freak out every time she leaves his sight for ten seconds.

No, he is absolutely not freaking out right now.

Except he can’t seem to quash the mounting alarm when he finds she’s not in the bathroom or the guest room.

In the living room, he finds a Christmas tree and several candles burned down to nubs in their menorahs, but no Rebecca.

He jogs back to his bedroom, fishes his phone out of the pocket of his slacks, and is already scrolling through his list of contacts before he remembers that he doesn’t have her number. There was never a need to ask. If he wanted to talk to her, she was just a room away.

Cursing, he moves back into the living room and boots up his laptop.

It’s not hard to find her on Facebook, but she hasn’t been active for a couple days. He types out a message anyway, but it sounds way too desperate and frantic when he reads it back. With a frustrated sigh, Nathaniel taps the backspace key until it’s gone.

_This is fine_ , he tells himself. She could have simply gone out for breakfast. There’s no need for him to whip himself into a frenzy like he’s never going to see her again.

He takes a deep breath. Right. This isn’t a disaster, necessarily. He’ll just give her some time, and she’ll come back.

To keep the delusion alive, he doesn’t bother investigating her room for clues as to where she might have disappeared. He doesn’t want to see that all her things are gone.

###

He puts forth an honest effort to review the practice LSAT he took over the weekend and take notes on the problems he got wrong, he really does. But every couple minutes, he finds his eyes drifting over to the door.

After thirty minutes’ worth of futile attempts to focus, he starts to consider the possibility that Rebecca’s not coming back. And once he opens himself up to it, the panic hits him full-on, his brain offering up any worst-case scenario within reach.

She went out for bagels and was kidnapped. No, she was so drunk she fell off his balcony last night and he didn’t even wake up for it. No, she was so horrified by what they’d done, she took off into the night and is out there somewhere suffering from frostbite. No, she never liked him and now that things are so complicated she’s decided to find a different ride to West Covina. No, she never actually existed in the first place.

The sheer absurdity of the last one trips up his spiraling.

She can’t be a figment of his imagination; there’s evidence of her presence everywhere. And it isn’t even like he’d been the only one to meet her.

A surge of inspiration energizes him. Paula! Of course. He nearly drops his phone—his hands are shaking for some reason—in his haste to call her.

When it starts to seem likely that she’s not going to answer, he tries to rehearse some message that doesn’t sound absolutely nuts.

In the end, he’s spared the embarrassment. Her mailbox is full.

He sets his phone back down on the desk with a sigh. After a moment of staring at it, he turns back to his practice test.

Except the flood of adrenaline he’d felt moments before hasn’t quite worn off, and his mind is even more frantic, racing with non-thoughts that keep him from truly seeing his computer screen.

Letting out a pathetic groan, he slams his laptop shut and starts pacing. If he sits here for one more minute, he’s going to snap. He needs to be doing something tangible.

He tries Paula again before grabbing his jacket, shoving his feet into his running shoes, and stomping out of the apartment.

###

“Is Paula in the office?” Nathaniel asks as soon as Darryl answers the phone, trying to keep his tone cool and businesslike even as he almost slips on the thin sheet of ice covering the parking lot.

“Well, hello to you, too,” Darryl says, his voice playful.

Nathaniel grits his teeth. “Hi. Is she?”

“No, actually, she went home for lunch. Why? What’s wrong?”

He rolls his eyes skyward before getting into his car. “It’s nothing. I just need to talk to her.”

“Did you try calling—”

“Full voicemail. Can I have her address?”

“Oh, man, you know I’d give it to you in a heartbeat,” Darryl says, “but I’m not sure how comfortable Paula would be with that.”

It’s for…” Nathaniel pauses, not sure how to define the situation he’s in. “Emergency reasons.”

“An emergency?” Darryl asks, voice already tensing with worry. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“You can give me Paula’s home address.”

Darryl sighs, clearly not pleased with this answer, but after a moment of hesitation he says, “Yeah, okay. Alright.”

“Thanks, Darryl, you’re a lifesaver and I owe you one,” Nathaniel says, copying the street name and number onto the back of an old gas station receipt.

“Nah,” Darryl says, sounding pleased. “You just let me know if there’s anything else you need…and maybe don’t tell Paula I’m the one who gave out her information.”

Even with all the panic crowding his head, Nathaniel still finds it in himself to smile in amusement. “Done.”

The roads are strangely empty, but even so he navigates to Paula’s with care. Patches of ice cover the city and snow starts to float down from the sky just as he’s pulling up to cozy-looking ranch. It reminds him of the night before—of his moment with Rebecca out on the balcony—and his stomach lurches.

As he approaches the door to Paula’s house, he can make out the thrum of too-loud bass coming from inside. It makes his head pulse unpleasantly.

Paula answers his knock with a toddler on her hip. Before she greets him, she half-turns and yells up the stairs. “Turn it down, Brendan! I can’t even hear myself think!”

Nathaniel winces, pushing his palm into his throbbing forehead. “Do you greet all your visitors like this?”

“No, you’re special,” Paula says with a honeyed affectation. Dropping it, she asks, “What are you doing here?”

“Well, I tried calling instead…”

“Oh,” Paula says, letting the kid down when he starts to wiggle, “You’re the one who called me a million times this morning.”

He cocks his head at her. “It was twice.”

She shrugs as if to say _same difference_.

“Right, well, if you saw, why didn’t you answer?”

“Didn’t know it was you.”

“Shouldn’t you have my number?” he asks, raising his voice as the music gets even louder. “It was in the employee directory.”

“Deleted it when I didn’t need it anymore,” Paula says, giving him a pointed look. Then she turns toward the stairs again and shouts, “Brendan, I swear to Christ if you don’t turn that music down, I will come upstairs and murder you with that stupid katana!”

“Cold,” Nathaniel comments, but seconds later, the noise dies down.

She gives him a pleased smirk. “Did I hurt your precious, Plimpton feelings?”

“No, I meant…” he trails off, pointing toward the staircase. “Never mind. Though I must admit, I assumed you of all the people at Whitefeather would be a little smarter about networking. You never know when knowing a Plimpton will come in handy.”

She makes a show of rolling her eyes. “Are you going to tell me why you’re here?”

“Right,” he says, licking his lips. “Um, I need Rebecca’s number. You two have been in contact, right? You have it?”

For the first time since she opened the door, Paula looks interested. “Isn’t she staying with you? You’re supposed to drive her to West Covina tomorrow.”

“I am.” Nathaniel shifts his weight, and she tracks the movement with bright, eager eyes.

“Something happened,” she says.

He forces out a dismissive bark of a laugh. “Nothing gets past you, huh? So do you have the number or not?”

“What did you do to her?” she asks, her searching gaze turning accusatory.

“Me?” He balks. “ _She’s_ the one who ran out in the middle of—” He cuts himself off, not liking the knowing gleam in Paula’s eye that gets knowing-er with every word out of his mouth. “Our discussion of the economy.”

Paula raises a single eyebrow, her smile caught somewhere between amused and incensed. “You slept with her, didn’t you?”

“Wha—that’s…” He tries to give an indignant scoff at the mere suggestion, but it comes out more like nervous tittering. “Totally preposterous.”

Paula crosses her arms over her chest. “Uh-huh.”

Nathaniel swallows hard, his mind scrambling for some kind of recourse. He’s saved the trouble when Paula’s older son comes clomping down the stairs.

“Is something burning?” he asks.

“The cookies!” Paula turns on her heel and rushes into the house.

Brendan holds Nathaniel’s confused eye contact for a moment before shrugging and heading back up the stairs. A moment later, the music comes on again—quieter than before but still much louder than necessary.

Nathaniel squeezes his eyes shut, seriously considering just turning around, committing to the crazy theory that Rebecca never even existed, and moving on with his life. But then he thinks about how her warm skin had felt under his palms, about how easy it was to get carried away by the weightlessness of her laugh.

Sighing, he steps into the foyer, tugging the door closed behind him. He follows the clattering sounds of pans and the pervasive smell of burnt sugar toward the kitchen, pausing in the doorway to clear his throat.

If Paula’s surprised that he took the liberty of letting himself in, she doesn’t show it.

“Need any help?” he asks.

“No,” she says shortly, scraping the charred bits of sugar cookie off one of the pans. He presses his lips into a thin line and watches her struggle. A moment later, she drops the turner and pushes some hair out of her face. “Actually, can you open the window over the sink? I’m too short to reach.”

“Sure,” he says, crossing the room in a couple strides. He feels Paula’s eyes on him as he undoes the latch and pushes the screen open. When he steps away to lean against the counter, she continues to stare at him, unabashed. He rolls his eyes. “Stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what, a dirty cheater?”

“More like I’m the latest edition of _Entertainment Weekly_ , and you can’t wait to read up on which celebrity couple’s in the market for a divorce.”

“Oh please.” She scoffs. “You think I waste my time with that rag? I’m strictly a _People_ kind of broad.”

“Ah, of course. Only the best for a classy woman such as yourself.”

She lets out a surprised, genuine laugh, and Nathaniel feels his own expression soften into a smile in response.

“Alright,” she says, her voice a shade warmer all of a sudden. “Let’s compromise. I’ll text her for you—”

“Okay. Thank you.”

“— _after_ you tell me what happened.”

“What? No way.”

“Oh, come on,” she says.

“I’m not gonna let you use my personal life as a way to temporarily assuage your boredom.”

“Why not?” she asks, quirking an eyebrow at him. “It’s not like you have any leverage anyway. You laid all your cards on the table as soon as you walked in. It’s bad form, really. I figured a Plimpton would know better.”

He gapes at her for a long moment.

Impatient, Paula pushes. “What have you got to lose indulging a failed homemaker just looking for a little entertainment?”

Nathaniel considers that. Part of him is irritated—both at Paula for her strange request, and at himself for somehow failing to realize he’d forfeited his hand so completely—but there’s also a voice in the back of his head telling him to go for it. Telling him that maybe talking to Paula is the best way to make sense of everything that happened.

“If I do this,” he says finally, his voice careful and measured, “you can’t judge me.”

“Yeah right,” she says, pulling a face that tells him that’s the most absurd thing she’s ever heard. “You don’t have any bargaining power here, remember? You take the deal, the whole deal, and nothing but the deal.”

He studies her. “You know, you’re gonna make a terrifyingly good lawyer someday.”

“If I ever stumble upon a fortune that lets me afford law school, maybe,” she says, waving away his comment. But he catches her satisfied grin before she schools her features back into a stern and businesslike expression.

“Fine,” he says. “You have yourself a deal.”

Paula nods like she knew he was going to give in all along. But when they stand in silence for several seconds, her self-satisfaction turns to confusion.

“Any day now,” she prompts.

“I, er—I don’t really know where to start,” he says, feeling embarrassed for some reason.

An eager gleam sparks up in her eyes. “Oh, that’s easy. Let’s start with how you two met.”

Nathaniel blows a deep breath out through the side of his mouth. “Well, three days ago, I heard the knocking…”

###

“Wow, you really care about her, huh?” Paula asks after Nathaniel finishes the story. Shaking her head like she can’t believe it, she stands from the table and grabs his empty water glass, retrieving the pitcher from the fridge.

“I think I’m offended by your surprise,” he says, biting back the urge to deny it. That probably isn’t the best way to get what he wants from Paula. “We’re friends, and she apparently has the habit of getting into strange people’s cars. I’m worried about her.”

“Uh-huh.” She plunks the cup down in front of him and then goes to change out the new batch of sugar cookies she’d put in the oven.

“What?” he asks, already exasperated by her answer.

“You slept with a woman who had a boyfriend. At least have the decency to admit that you were motivated to do so by your feelings for her.”

He narrows his eyes.

“Or are you telling me,” Paula continues, stabbing her turner at him from across the room, “that you only did it because she was there and you wanted to see if you could?”

Nathaniel’s nostrils flare. “Fine.”

“Fine what?” Paula goads.

“Fine, I may have been dealing with some… _feelings_.” He grits out the last word.

She rolls her eyes to the sky before continuing to shovel cookies onto a cooling rack. “Good enough, I guess.”

He’s silent, thinking. After a beat, he asks, “So what about Rebecca?”

“What about her?”

“The sex was consensual,” Nathaniel snips, still feeling a little tetchy. “So what does that say about her?”

“I don’t know exactly,” Paula says thoughtfully, and he’s not sure whether to feel comforted or annoyed that she’s taking this so seriously. “It all depends on what genre we’re in, and I haven’t figured it out yet.”

“Cheesy, made-for-TV movie,” he says under his breath.

“What’s that?” she asks him, tilting her head back toward the table.

“Name one love triangle where the protagonist stays with their original love interest,” Nathaniel says instead of repeating himself. When she twists all the way around to give him an interested look, he shrugs. “I’ve read the classics.”

“I underestimated your capacity for romance, Plimpton.”

He grins at her, but it slips off his face after just a moment. “Do you really think she’ll stay with that Chan guy after all this?”

Paula’s phone vibrates once, but she takes a second to frown sympathetically at him before reaching for it. “I think if you wanna know how she’s feeling about the whole mess, you’re gonna have to ask her.”

“Yeah, sure. Helpful advice,” he says, letting out a sharp breath through his nose. “I may never see her again. How am I supposed to just ask her how she’s feeling?”

“Don’t be so sure,” Paula says, a smile unfurling as she stares down at her phone.

“Excuse me?”

“Rebecca is at your apartment right now.”

Nathaniel pushes up out of his chair. “What?”

“Yeah, she just texted me back.”

He fumbles his way around the kitchen table and grabs Paula’s phone out of her hands, ignoring her protests. Sure enough, the screen shows a new text from Rebecca.

_I’m fine. Still at Nathaniel’s apartment. Why do you ask?_

He blinks. “Is this a trick?”

Paula snatches her phone back. “Only one way to find out, really.” She shakes her head when he stares at her in disbelief. “Come on. You’re familiar with the classics. You know what happens now. Time to race against the clock to get her back.”

“Okay,” he says, “but there’s technically no ticking clock here.”

“Isn’t there?” she asks. “In a day, you go back to LA, and you’ll be out of each other’s lives.”

He considers that for exactly one second before he takes off for the front door.

When he’s nearly there, he spins on his heel, ready to rush back into the kitchen to say goodbye, but Paula’s already following him.

“Thanks,” he says. “I owe you one.”

“Oh, I know. That’s why I added your number back to my contacts,” she says with a grin.

He laughs once and then, before he can give the impulse too much thought, wraps her up in a hug. She gives a surprised _oh_ before patting him on the back in reciprocation.

“What are you waiting for?” she asks after a second. “Get out of here.”

“Right,” he says, backing away a couple steps. “Right!

He’s out the door before Paula can finish saying, “Good luck.”

###

Nathaniel’s halfway home before the anxiety sets back in. What if Rebecca was lying to Paula and he’s back at square one as soon as he gets home? What if she was there, but decided she couldn’t face him and left again?

He stops himself short of revisiting the never-existed theory.

It’s all too ridiculous, this preoccupation. He should welcome the opportunity to get back to work without distractions. His weekend with Rebecca Bunch was just a strange detour from his true path. It doesn’t mean he can’t look back on it fondly, but it’s high time he lets go of the fanciful notion that it was anything other than a glitch.

_Who wants to deal with the embarrassment of having to admit their true feelings, anyway?_ He thinks to himself. _It’ll be better if she’s not there._

He’s still trying to talk himself into indifference by the time he parks his car and starts for the front door of his building.

When he gets within a couple feet, he stops short, fumbling his keys.

She’s there, sitting with her back against the building and leaning on her bag. She gives him a meek smile when she sees him and pushes up to her feet.

Before coherent thought resumes in his head, Nathaniel’s feet are taking him right to her.

He knocks into her with such force, she has to take a few stumbling steps backward to correct for the momentum. He follows after her, his arms wrapping around her waist.

She throws her arms around his neck in response, and he can feel her toothy smile as she presses her face into the top of his shoulder.

He takes in a deep breath, inhaling some of her hair. It tickles, but he really doesn’t care. He squeezes her tighter.

“Huh,” she says, her voice muffled against his shirt. “Guess I should pull the sleep-with-him-leave-in-the-middle-of-the-night-and-then-show-up-on-his-doorstep-to-eat-crow move more often. The dudes really dig it, huh?”

Her words cause him to tense. She senses her mistake and drops her arms at the same time he takes a step away from her.

“What the hell, Rebecca?”

“Oh, come on, I was kidding,” she says, a frustrated, blotchy blush working its way up her neck. “Let’s not do this right now. Let’s just go back to the hugging. That was nice!”

He holds up his hands when she goes to move closer. “I was worried about you,” he says, and his voice sounds raw to his own ears. A ball of chagrin tightens in his stomach. “What the hell happened?”

“Nothing,” Rebecca says. “It’s nothing.”

“That’s obviously not true.”

“What do you want me to say?” she asks, a shrill edge to her voice. “We made a mistake, and I reacted, and now I’m back. It’s not a big deal.”

His stomach squeezes tighter. Not wanting to let on how much her words hurt, Nathaniel schools his expression into what he hopes is cold indifference. “Right. Why is that, exactly? Shouldn’t you be on your way to your magnificent boyfriend by now?”

“I might’ve been,” Rebecca grumbles, “if it weren’t for this whole ridiculous town freaking out over the snow. Did you know they closed down all the public transportation? Over a mere inch of snow? On the East Coast, we barely bat an eye over storms that bring seven inches. What’s that, blizzard? Ten inches of snow? I’ve faced worse obstacles on my way to work. I live in New York, you can’t faze me.”

He hates the part of himself that’d been hoping for an answer more along the lines of, _Well I just couldn’t leave town. Not with all that unfinished business between us._

“That still doesn’t explain what you’re doing here,” he says, crossing his arms over his chest and staring at her through narrowed eyes.

She wrings her hands, takes in a deep breath, and then looks up at him through her eyelashes, blinking innocently.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he says, shaking his head.

“It’s just one more night,” she says. “I promise it’ll be like I’m not even there.”

“No!”

“Nathaniel, come on. I’ve got nowhere else to go.”

“That is not my problem.”

She gapes at him a second before her expression turns pouty. “Come on. Let me stay. As your good friend, I’ll—”

“That’s not gonna work anymore,” he says, cutting her off.

Her eyebrows come together, hurt flashing in her eyes. “Alright, fine.”

“Great,” he says, turning his back and unlocking the front door to the building. When she catches it and steps inside behind him, he shoots her a disbelieving look. “What the hell are you doing?”

She shrugs. “You don’t want me to come inside your apartment, that’s fine. But I’m not gonna sleep outside. It’s cold, dude.”

“So you’re…what? Going to spend the night in the lobby?”

“I was thinking more along the lines of right outside your door.”

He flashes back to the night they’d met.

Rebecca nods like she can read his mind. “That’s right. And let’s not forget how persistent I am.”

He practically growls, but she doesn’t back down, standing there with her smug grin. She knows she has him, and that irritates him more than anything.

“Fine,” he says, giving into the inevitable. “You can spend the night.”

“Thank you,” she says, bouncing past him into the hall like she owns the place.

###

“I left a mug out for you in the kitchen,” Rebecca says as Nathaniel pushes the sliding glass door to the patio open. She holds up her own mug of tea, rocking back on the glider to better meet his eye. “I just boiled the water, like, five minutes ago. It should still be warm.”

He raises his eyebrows at her, unmoving.

“Or, you know, I can leave,” she says with a sad sigh. “If you want to be alone.”

He stares a moment longer, and his mind flashes back to what Paula’d said about ticking clocks before he heads into the kitchen.

She’s quiet when he comes back with a steaming mug of tea and settles next to her on the loveseat. They sit in silence for a bit, Rebecca rocking them back and forth. He’s nearly finished with his tea—his fingers starting to freeze without the heat of the mug staving off the chill in the air—by the time she breaks the tension, tracing ‘SORRY’ into the dusting of snow that’s gathered around the bottom of the porch railing with the toe of her shoe.

He rolls his eyes but smiles despite himself.

She smiles back at him, her eyes warm and inviting. He’s tempted to give in and offer her the conversational opening she’s so obviously looking for, but then he remembers he’d given in to her the last time they were out here together and that definitely hadn’t worked in his favor. Not in the long run, anyway.

He gives an infinitesimal shake of his head, and her eyebrows come together.

They fall silent again, and just when it’s becoming too much—when he’s considering going back inside to fit in a few hours of sleep before the sunrise—she blurts, “Josh isn’t my boyfriend!”

He blinks. “What?”

“Ha! Knew I could get you to talk to me.”

Nathaniel feels his eyes bulge.

“Oh, god, no, I wasn’t—that’s not—” Rebecca shakes her head, composing herself. “I wasn’t just saying something to get you to talk to me.”

“Okay,” he says, unsure.

“Josh really isn’t my boyfriend. He, uh, hasn’t been this whole time.”

He blinks…then blinks again. “Okay.”

“Is that really all you’re gonna say?” she asks, her face pinched with apprehension.

“I don’t know…” He trails off, swallows hard, and then continues, “…what to say.”

“Maybe something along the lines of ‘That changes everything, and I totally forgive you, Rebecca’.”

He scoffs. “I don’t.”

“Come on,” Rebecca whines.

“How could I,” he asks, his anger at her revelation catching up with him, “knowing you were lying to me the whole time?”

“You’re making it sound like a bigger deal than it is,” she says, cranking around in her seat to angle her body toward him. “I only lied about one, immaterial detail.”

“Immaterial? You let me believe that we were cheating last night!”

“That obviously didn’t pose enough of a moral dilemma to stop you.”

“No way,” he says. He mirrors her position, but tucks his one foot under his knee to keep his leg as a barrier between them. “You do not get to even vie for the moral high ground here. You have relinquished all claims to the moral high ground.”

“Fine, granted,” she says, pouting.

He wishes he could leave it there, wishes he could get up and go back to his room and then spend the rest of his break peacefully, knowing this weekend really was just one big joke. But his stupid, inconvenient feelings goad him into asking, “So why’d you do it? Why lie?”

She looks down at her lap, frowning. “It wasn’t like I set out to deceive you. It’s just…when I told you the story, we hardly knew each other. And the truth isn’t exactly an easy pill to swallow. Telling you wasn’t worth it.”

Nathaniel huffs, digesting that. It’s a reasonable enough point. Still…

“You could have told me the truth any time after meeting me and before sex,” he points out.

Rebecca wrinkles her nose. “And ruin the mood?”

That draws a laugh out of him, and she lifts her head to smile.

Before she can say anything else, though, he rushes the conversation forward. “So what is the truth, exactly?”

“Pretty much what I told you. Josh and I met in the Excelsingers and we dated for a bit. The only difference is, instead of being in a long-term relationship, Josh and I broke up when he moved back to California.”

“And your reason for embarking on an extremely dangerous trek across the country?”

“The same,” Rebecca says, eyes focused on her lap again. “Josh really did send me an email about Christmas being our holiday. So I—I thought it would be a good idea to prove him right.”

“That’s—” Nathaniel pauses, looking for the right word.

She jumps in, “Crazy and dramatic and weird. I know. You don’t have to say it.”

He _hmm_ s. “I was thinking more along the lines of stupid and unnecessarily desperate.”

Her head snaps up, and she cocks an expectant eyebrow at him.

“And, okay,” he says, a teasing smile playing on his lips, “a little crazy.”

She gives him a disapproving look, but he can tell by the way she’s scrunching her mouth all tight that she’s really just trying to hide a grin.

“So do you forgive me yet?” she asks, batting her eyelashes.

His smile slips, and instead of answering her question, he asks one of his own. “So if not for the guilt over cheating, why’d you leave?”

A few emotions play over her face, but she cycles through them too fast for him to really follow. Finally, she flashes him a saccharine smile.

“I thought we already covered that. Crazy, yeah?” She punctuates her own non-answer by pointing to the big, fake grin with both hands.

He nods once even though he still feels unsatisfied. “Where does that leave us?”

“You tell me, dude,” she says, nudging his leg. The casual contact is enough to send his heart jumping up into his throat, and Nathaniel can feel his resolve slipping.

“I still leave tomorrow to go back to my parents’ house,” he says.

“Yeah, and I should go back to New York, I guess.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

“So…” He takes a deep breath. “We should probably make the most of our last night together.”

A hopeful smile starts to bloom on her face. “Yeah?”

“Practically speaking,” he says, leaning over to set his empty mug on the ground, “I could set aside my anger for twenty-four hours—because I’m definitely still angry.”

“That’s fair,” she interjects.

He smirks at her. “I’ll have plenty of time to resent you once the night has passed, after all.”

“You could hold a grudge for the rest of your life, even,” Rebecca agrees, planting her hands on his knees and sliding her palms up, up, up.

He twitches under her touch, trying to determine if there’s any way to tug her into his lap without hurting one or both of them in the process.

Thankfully, she’s on the same page as him, already draping her body over his.

“Might as well take a break from all that resentment,” he says, his hands moving into her hair of their own accord.

“It’s only practical,” she says, arms snaking around his waist so she can hug herself to him.

They’re both smiling when their lips meet for a teeth-bumping, chest-warming kiss.

###

“Hey,” Rebecca whispers later, and then bites his shoulder, not exactly gently.

“Hmm?” Nathaniel shifts in the bed until he’s facing her, and she scoots closer, the arm draped around his waist tightening its hold.

“Earlier, you said something,” she says. She’s not looking at him, and the moonlight coming through the window over his bed casts dramatic shadows over her face.

“About resenting you?” he guesses, playful.

She shakes her head. “Unnecessarily desperate.”

He swallows thickly before saying, “I also called you stupid. Let’s not forget about that.”

She’s watching him now, those keen and bright eyes tracking every shift of his muscles.

“So you _did_ mean something by that,” she says.

“In the sense that words have meaning and are used to communicate ideas? Yeah.”

She grins. “I don’t know. I think that adverb is very telling.”

“Aren’t adverbs considered poor form? The weakest weapon in the creative language arsenal?”

“You like me,” Rebecca says with a sing-song.

Nathaniel rolls his eyes.

“You like me a lot,” she continues, pushing him onto his back and then rolling on top of him. “Say it.”

“God, do you ever stop fishing for compliments?” he asks, hands finding her hips.

She ducks her head to nip at his earlobe, and he lets out an embarrassing half-laugh, half-moan.

“I like you,” she whispers in his ear.

He shivers. “A lot?”

“God,” she says, smiling against his cheek. “Do you ever stop fishing for compliments?”

###

“You’re sure you have everything?” Nathaniel asks as they’re pulling into one of the LAX parking lots.

“I didn’t exactly bring much,” Rebecca says, but she unzips her bag to check. He notices one of the eight menorahs they’d bought that weekend stuffed inside and smiles to himself. “Yeah, I think I’m all good.”

They nod at each other and then, after a beat, get out of the car.

“So…,” he says, shoving his hands deep into his jacket pockets as he walks around the front of the car to meet her. His fingers brush the item he’d impulsively grabbed that morning on their way out the door, but he doesn’t bring it out. Not yet.

“So,” she responds, looking up at him expectantly.

Staring into her eyes for too long makes Nathaniel feel the same way he does when he misses all three meals in a day: shaky and ravenous. He clears his throat and looks out over the sea of cars.

“You don’t, um, need any money or anything?” he checks.

“Nah.” She waves away his offer. “I’ve got a for-emergencies credit card.”

“I see.”

“My only hope is that my mom doesn’t notice I’ve used it until after I’m on the plane and without Wi-Fi. Maybe six hours will give her enough time to rage without me.”

“You think she’ll be mad that you’re coming home?” he asks.

“Oh yeah,” Rebecca says, and the way she says it makes Nathaniel’s heart squeeze.

He searches her face, but she’s fixed a pleasantly neutral smile in place. “You’ll be okay, though?”

She scoffs. “Dude, I am way equipped to handle a Naomi Bunch fit. It’s practically holiday tradition at this point.”

That makes him laugh, and her smile relaxes into something more genuine in response.

“Maybe get her a back massager or a box of chocolates,” he says, pointing toward the airport. “Soften her up a little.”

“Not a bad idea,” she says. “Even better if I charge her card.”

“I’ve got—” He’s already reaching for his wallet, but Rebecca catches his wrists.

“No, Nathaniel. No, thank you. It’ll be fine.”

“Right,” he says, face warming as he glances down at their hands.

“Right.”

Their eyes lock then, and he feels his heart jump up into his throat.

“Well you should…” He can’t make himself say _go_.

But Rebecca gets it anyway. “Yeah. And you’ve gotta get to your parents’ house.”

“I do.”

“So this is goodbye,” she says.

“I suppose it has to be.”

She waits a moment, maybe giving him the chance to say something else. When he doesn’t, she nods and takes a step backward toward the terminal.

“We’ll keep in touch,” she promises.

“Sure,” he says. “There’s Facebook and texting. I have your number now.”

“Yeah!” She salutes him, and then winces. “I’ll, uh, even text you when I land.”

“Please do,” he says. She takes another step away from him, and he licks his lips. Uncertainty keeps everything else he wants to stay stuck in his throat.

“Okay, well.” She gives an awkward wave. “Bye.”

He watches her turn and start for the airport in earnest. Before she gets very far, he manages to swallow over the lump in his throat, and pulls the surprise from his pocket.

“Rebecca!”

She spins around eagerly, her eyes immediately zeroing in on the mistletoe he’s holding above his head.

“I mean, I know you’re Jewish and all, but I thought—”

She runs into him, cutting him off and flinging her arms around his neck. He allows himself to be pulled down into the kiss readily, hands finding her waist.

“Christmas rules,” she whispers when they both break away to breathe, so close he can feel the movement of her lips against his own.

He smiles. “Exactly.”

And then she’s smacking his shoulder. “You really had me going there, asshole.”

“Hey!”

“You were all standoffish and _I suppose it has to be_ ,” she says, doing a British accent for him for some reason. “And you totally had me thinking you were gonna let me leave without, like, a proper goodbye. I hate you.” She smacks him again.

“Alright,” he says, catching her hand and threading his fingers through hers when she goes to hit him once more. “Do we need to rehash who left whom in bed in the middle of the night again?”

She narrows his eyes at him and pouts out her lower lip but doesn’t respond.

“That’s what I thought.”

“Whatever, I still hate you.”

“And my resentment of you is alive and well.”

They grin at each other.

“Where’d you even get mistletoe?” She gasps. “You didn’t steal from Darryl, did you?”

He shakes his head. “I might have picked out a few decorations of my own while you weren’t looking.”

“Why Nathaniel Plimpton,” Rebecca says, raising her eyebrows and looking up at him with her wide blue eyes. “Were you planning to kiss me that whole time?”

He brushes a few strands of hair off her forehead. “It wasn’t so much of a plan as a hope.”

She bites her lip, and he finds himself leaning forward in response.

They break apart again when his phone starts chiming. He shoots her an apologetic look before glancing at the caller ID: his mom.

“My parents,” he says.

“Yeah, and I should be on my way, too.”

They nod, but neither of them moves.

“You’ll text me?” he checks. “When you land?”

She smiles and cups his cheek in her palm. “Mm-hmm. And you should text me every time a relative does something suspiciously non-human.”

“I suspect you’ll be hearing from me a lot, then.”

“Goody.”

He kisses her again, all hard determination and bruising fingers.

“We’ll always have Stanford,” he says, pressing his lips to her cheeks.

She laughs, but it sounds gurgled and wrong.

“Cue the credits,” she says, pressing her lips to his.

And when the kiss is over, he lets her go.

### Epilogue ###

“It’s been a pleasure doing business with you,” Nathaniel says, reaching across the desk to shake Darryl’s hand.

“Kid, you have no idea,” Darryl says, giving his hand an enthusiastic pump before letting go.

Nathaniel stands, smooths down the front of his suit, and heads for the door. “I’ll see you next Friday for the Christmas party at your place?”

“You are slated as my esteemed guest and nothing more,” Darryl says, wiggling in his seat. “I haven’t told a soul about the merger.”

“I don’t believe you,” Nathaniel says before ducking out of the office with a wink.

He doesn’t even try to suppress his self-satisfied smile as he heads for the elevator. Convincing his dad that buying shares of Whitefeather and Associates was worth it had been ten times harder than passing the bar, but now that the deal was more or less official, it felt worth it.

As he passes the conference room, he hesitates for a moment, practically tripping over his own feet.

_Is that…?_

But he quickly shakes off the jolt of adrenaline and keeps moving. Rebecca Bunch is always on his mind this time of year. Every dark-haired woman he sees during the month of December gives him pause, and this time is no different from the others. Just his mind playing tricks on him.

He’s already convinced himself, so he doesn’t pay much attention to clack of heels chasing after him to the elevator. “Nathaniel? Nathaniel Plimpton is that you?”

He turns slowly, giving himself enough time to quash his hope, as if he hadn’t been immediately transported back to college upon hearing her voice.

And there she is, standing before him with an amused smirk on her face. Like she always knew it’d take him a decade to find her again, being the friendless workaholic that he is.

“Rebecca Bunch. I saw on Facebook that you’d moved to Northern California a few years back,” he says, raising his eyebrows. “I never followed up on it though.”

“What can I say? Darryl made me an offer that I…well I totally could have refused it, but I definitely didn’t want to. Dude! What are you doing here?”

His elevator arrives, but he ignores it. “I’m here on business, actually.”

“Wait,” she says, her eyes dancing. Nathaniel feels his heart tap out its own joyous routine in response. “Were you Darryl’s super-secret meeting? Oh, my god. Is Plimpton, Plimpton & Plimpton merging with Whitefeather!?”

He rolls his eyes toward the sky. “I knew Darryl couldn’t keep his mouth shut.”

“Hold up. I was kidding. Is that really happening? That’s so cool! Please tell me that’s really happening!”

“Keep your voice down,” he hisses, ushering her into the elevator and jabbing the door close button. “We’re not announcing the sale until the New Year.”

She stares at him for a long moment, and he resists the urge to straighten his tie.

“You look good,” she says, changing tracks so quickly, it leaves him dizzy.

“So do you. You outgrew the whole frizzy hair thing.”

She scoffs playfully and puts on a southern accent. “Why, I’m so touched you noticed.” And then drops it just as fast. “Except I didn’t so much grow out of it as I learned how to tame it.”

“Tame?” he says, finding himself subconsciously inching into her personal space. “That’s a new look for you.”

There’s a smile playing on the edges of her lips as she nudges him with her shoulder. “It feels like kismet, finding you here,” she says, her voice soft, like she’s confiding something so serious it could only be conveyed in a reverent whisper. “We should get together, catch up.”

“Of course. We wouldn’t want to fly in the face of kismet.”

“So are you free now?” she asks, and he feels suspiciously like the Grinch after he learns the meaning of Christmas—heart too big to fit in his chest.

The elevator stops at the first floor, and she follows him out into the mild air.

“I’m not, actually,” he says, frowning. “I already have a lunch appointment.”

“Drinks tonight then,” she says, undeterred.

He laughs and pulls out his phone.

“Looks like I won’t have the free time until Sunday, though I’ll be at Darryl’s party this Friday.”

“Sunday…,” Rebecca says, checking her own schedule. “Sunday the 24th?”

He flushes. “Yeah. If you already have plans we can—”

“It’s perfect,” she says, typing a reminder to herself before she looks up to meet his eye. “Christmas is _our_ holiday, after all.”

“You know,” he says, not bothering to hide his dopey grin, “I’ve always felt that.”


End file.
